ICE officers shot Oscar Belgal, 28, in the neck on Thursday around 16:00 in Marble Hill, while his five-year-old son was in the back seat.
Markwayne Mullin said officers did not know the child was in the car and told reporters, "We're not putting a pause on enforcement."
Mayor Zohran Mamdani called for ICE to be abolished and said he spoke with Trump and Mullin, but neither the release nor an enforcement freeze has happened.
A federal judge on Friday morning ordered Belgal kept in New York or New Jersey and not deported, while his lawyers challenge the detention through a habeas corpus petition.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers shot Oscar Belgal, a 28-year-old Dominican man, on Thursday afternoon in the Marble Hill neighborhood, on the boundary between Upper Manhattan and the Bronx. The Department of Homeland Security said the shooting occurred around 16:00 local time near the intersection of West 225th Street and Marble Hill Avenue, during an operation to arrest a man who was in the country illegally. According to ICE senior official Marcos Charles, Belgal refused to leave his car when approached, accelerated, struck two ICE vehicles and drove toward other officers, which Charles described as weaponizing the vehicle. Officers opened fire, and Charles said Belgal suffered a superficial wound to the neck. Police said Belgal's five-year-old son was in the back seat, and a police account cited by El País says at least one federal officer fired seven times.
At a press conference on Friday, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said officers did not know the child was in the car when they opened fire. He accused Belgal of endangering both the officers and the boy by using his car as a weapon, and he said "We're not putting a pause on enforcement." Mullin then turned his remarks on New York City's mayor.
“It's shameful that you have a mayor that goes out there and puts criminals over law-abiding citizens.”
The Department of Homeland Security said the operation targeted a man with a prior criminal conviction. Body camera footage released by the New York Police Department on Friday shows officers arriving at the scene and helping the man. Governor Kathy Hochul wrote on X that she expects federal authorities to provide a complete and transparent account of the circumstances surrounding the incident.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the shooting an outrage and posted on X that he was angry. His message read in English:
“Tonight I am angry. Because ICE shot a New York citizen. They shot him while his five-year-old child was in the car. ICE makes this city less safe. We want them out. Now.”
Mamdani said he had spent the past two hours on the phone with President Donald Trump and Secretary Mullin, trying to negotiate the release of the man. He called for the abolition of ICE and urged the administration to halt immigration enforcement operations in New York. Neither the release nor an enforcement freeze has happened, and the administration rebuffed the demand. Mamdani spoke at a night press conference near a turbulent protest in the neighborhood, where a rift with allies on the left emerged after protesters clashed with the NYPD.
Belgal could not be located for almost a full day after the shooting, and his lawyers said they first spoke with him on Friday afternoon. Paige Austin, one of his lawyers with the immigrant rights group Make the Road, told a federal court on Friday what she had been told by her client.
“He still feels pain. He told us he still has a bullet in his body.”
Harold Solís, another of his lawyers, said Belgal is very worried about his son and that the first thing he asked was whether the boy was all right. A federal judge ordered the government on Friday morning to keep Belgal detained only in New York or New Jersey and not to deport him. His defense asked a Manhattan court to prevent deportation while its habeas corpus petition challenges the detention. Accounts differ on where he is held, with one describing a detention facility outside New York state and another naming the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
El País reported that this was the first such incident in New York since Trump returned to power in January 2025. Deutsche Welle said the shooting comes as ICE arrests in New York have surged in recent months, prompting protests and calls to end immigration raids in the city.
The sequence runs from the Thursday afternoon shooting to the Friday court order, Mullin's press conference and Mamdani's evening remarks, with the body camera release also published on Friday.
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Federal officers shot Oscar Belgal, 28, in the neck in Marble Hill while his five-year-old son sat in the back seat. DHS defends the shooting, and the Trump administration has rejected a pause on enforcement.
AI text based on reports by EL PAÍS, Deutsche Welle, BBC and other publishers. Changed .