Mayor Zohran Mamdani demanded ICE’s abolition after agents shot a gang-linked illegal immigrant during a Bronx arrest, even as federal officials vowed no pause and protests flared.
Plain-clothes ICE agents shot 28-year-old Oscar Belgal in the neck Thursday afternoon in Marble Hill while trying to arrest him. Belgal, a Dominican national, sat in the driver’s seat of a gray Honda CRV with a 5-year-old child inside when the confrontation unfolded around 4 p.m.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at least one agent fired seven rounds. Belgal was struck below the left ear, handcuffed on the ground, treated by responding NYPD officers, and taken to NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital in stable condition. ICE later removed him in unmarked vehicles. The child, believed by police to be Belgal’s son, was unharmed.
The New York Post reported that DHS said agents were targeting Belgal over claimed ties to the Trinitarios, a Dominican gang founded on Rikers Island in the early 1990s. NYPD records show Belgal’s 2023 robbery arrest ended in a guilty plea to fourth-degree grand larceny and five years’ probation, plus a pending 2025 case for criminal sale of a controlled substance.
Mamdani held a late-night press conference near an anti-ICE protest around 11:20 p.m. He said he had spent the prior two hours on the phone with President Trump and DHS Secretary Mullin seeking Belgal’s release. Those talks failed. The mayor then demanded ICE leave the scene and stop all enforcement in New York City.
He framed the shooting as proof the agency itself must go.
Mamdani told reporters:
"Today’s shooting is only further devastating confirmation of what we have long known, which is that ICE operates with impunity, that they sow chaos and terror across our country, that they have killed far more of our neighbors than they could ever have claimed to save."
He called ICE “rotten to its core” and said the agency “must be abolished.” He added there was “no explanation for federal officers firing this many rounds into a car that has a 5-year-old in the car” and labeled the events “an outrage.” He also claimed ICE “undermines public safety” and “makes us less safe.”
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin made clear ICE would not pause work in the city. Breitbart reported Mullin’s direct criticism of sanctuary politicians who, he said, create space for crime.
Mullin stated:
"I want to make it very clear, sanctuary politicians, they create an environment for criminal activity to thrive... When you have sanctuary cities and sanctuary politicians you endanger the safety of the public."
Senior ICE official Marcos Charles said Belgal refused lawful orders and weaponized his vehicle. Agents believed their lives, their partners’ lives, and the public were in danger when they fired. Charles noted agents did not know a child was inside, but Belgal did and still chose to put the boy at risk while trying to flee.
Tisch confirmed the NYPD “had no involvement in the federal operation prior to the shooting.” When officers arrived they found men in mixed attire, some in construction-style vests and face masks, and at least one carrying a long gun, plus the injured man already handcuffed. City cameras captured the approach but not the shots themselves after the vehicle moved forward.
Mamdani’s latest clash fits a pattern of high-profile confrontations that have already drawn sharp public pushback, including 9/11 families petitioning to keep him from the Ground Zero anniversary ceremony.
Federal authorities tied Belgal to the Trinitarios, the same gang linked to a July indictment of nearly a dozen members for five murders and long suspected in the stray-bullet killing of 12-year-old Jacob Freytes, son of a retired NYPD sergeant. Belgal’s own New York arrests for robbery and drug sales sit on the public record.
Fox News reported that U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken later issued a temporary order blocking Belgal’s deportation and transfers outside certain New York and New Jersey districts while a petition remains pending. DHS cited the prior grand larceny conviction plus arrests for assault, robbery, drug possession, and weapons possession alongside the alleged gang ties.
Charles described the agents’ decision in plain terms:
"Our officers, using their training and believing that their life and the life of the partners and the general public were in danger, used their training and fired weapons."
The mayor’s call to shut down enforcement lands against that backdrop. He has already created separate City Hall storms, from handing a 9/11 memorial pen to an ex-al-Qaeda lawyer to open feuds over foreign policy.
Protesters gathered near the scene and some chanted that Mamdani himself was “complicit” even as he spoke. He still pressed the demand that ICE end its work in the five boroughs entirely.
Mullin’s point was straightforward: cities that shield illegal immigrants from federal immigration law give criminal actors room to operate. Belgal’s record and the gang allegation illustrate the gap between the mayor’s rhetoric and the people ICE actually targets.
Tisch’s timeline shows local police arrived only after the shots, found a wounded and already restrained suspect, and provided aid. The federal operation was separate. The child survived unharmed. Belgal left the hospital in ICE custody before the mayor’s cameras rolled.
Mamdani has also faced scrutiny over credentials and protocol, including the delayed receipt of federal security clearance nine months into his term, yet he continues to cast federal officers as the core threat to public safety.
The mayor asked what Trump had to say about the episode and insisted he had told both the president and the secretary that ICE must leave the city. Trump and Mullin did not release Belgal. ICE kept working.
That sequence leaves voters with a clear choice of priorities. One side treats an attempted arrest of a twice-arrested illegal immigrant with alleged murderous-gang links as grounds to dismantle the agency. The other side treats non-compliance, a moving vehicle, and a known enforcement target as reasons officers may lawfully defend themselves.
Mamdani’s press conference offered emotion and abolition slogans. It offered no plan for the Trinitarios cases already on the books or for the next illegal immigrant who decides to drive at agents with a child in the car.
Taxpayers and lawful residents still live with the results of those choices long after the cameras leave Marble Hill.