Mayor Zohran Mamdani pressed President Trump to halt ICE operations and free a shot illegal immigrant after a Bronx arrest, and Homeland Security shut the door.
Federal immigration officers wounded a 28-year-old Dominican national during a targeted arrest in New York City’s Marble Hill section of the Bronx, then faced an immediate political push from City Hall to stand down. Hours after the shooting, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he had spoken with President Donald Trump and demanded an end to ICE enforcement in the city plus the man’s release. Neither demand was met.
Politico reported that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin answered the mayor at a Friday press conference by rejecting any freeze and blaming local priorities that put offenders ahead of residents.
A five-year-old boy was in the car when agents fired. The child was unharmed. The 28-year-old man was shot in the neck and later held in federal custody.
Federal officials described a self-defense shooting, not a random street incident. The New York Post reported that ICE identified the driver as Oscar Belgal, a suspected Trinitarios gang member who allegedly rammed government vehicles and then drove at officers during the attempted arrest.
Marcos Charles of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations laid out the sequence in plain terms.
"He then accelerated his vehicle, smashing into two of our government ICE vehicles and then weaponized his vehicle and proceeded to accelerate, going towards other officers."
Charles said agents used their training when they believed their lives, their partners’ lives, and the public were in danger, and then fired. Officials said agents also rendered first aid before Belgal was taken into federal custody in New Jersey.
Belgal, 28, is from the Dominican Republic. He had prior New York charges that included grand larceny, theft, robbery, and being armed with a deadly weapon. He was on probation and subject to a Department of Homeland Security detainer when the arrest attempt unfolded in broad daylight.
Just the News reported that Mamdani said he spent about two hours on the phone with Trump and Secretary Mullin seeking Belgal’s release and a pullback of agents from the city. Those talks failed.
Mamdani framed the request as a citywide demand, not a narrow custody ask.
"For the past two hours, I’ve been on the phone with President Trump and [Homeland Security] Secretary Mullin negotiating the release of the man ICE agents shot. Those negotiations were unsuccessful."
He added that he told the president and the secretary ICE should leave the scene entirely and stop enforcement actions in New York City. Agents had fired multiple rounds through the front windshield around 4 p.m. Belgal was hit in the neck below the left ear and listed in stable condition. The child in the back seat was unhurt.
Fox News reported that Mamdani went further in public, casting ICE itself as the problem while protests broke out in the Bronx and clashed with the NYPD in the same residential area where the shooting occurred.
"All they do is terrorize this city."
He also said ICE is “rotten to its core.” Gov. Kathy Hochul joined the call for a halt to operations and pressed for bodycam footage. DHS answered by pointing to Belgal’s record and gang ties and by tying his earlier presence on the street to sanctuary release practices that ignored detainers.
Mullin did not soften the federal line. At the Friday press conference he said enforcement would continue and took direct aim at the mayor’s priorities.
"We’re not putting a pause on enforcement."
He followed with a sharper charge about who City Hall was choosing to protect.
"It’s shameful that you have a mayor that goes out there and puts criminals over law-abiding citizens."
The Washington Examiner reported DHS’s core identification of the wounded man: an illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic with a prior criminal conviction and ties to the Trinitarios gang. That description matched the federal account used across the briefings after the shooting.
The sequence left little ambiguity about the stakes. Agents moved to arrest a man with a detainer and a violent record. Officials say he used the car as a weapon. A child was in the vehicle. The mayor’s first major ask was not tighter cooperation on removals. It was a freeze on ICE and the release of the suspect.
New York’s long-running fight over ICE detainers sat under the entire episode. Federal officers were executing an immigration arrest on a man already known to local and federal systems. City leadership answered a nonfatal shooting with a demand that the same officers leave town.
Mullin’s refusal closed the door on that bargain. The administration kept Belgal in custody, kept agents in the field, and treated the mayor’s outreach as proof of a policy gap rather than a reason to retreat. Protesters still filled the neighborhood. NYPD still had to manage the unrest. The five-year-old still went home unharmed while the driver recovered under federal hold.
Voters who want secure streets and enforced immigration law did not need a long translation. A mayor called the White House to pull federal officers off a gang-linked illegal immigrant after agents said he drove at them. Washington said no.
When city leaders side with the offender over the officers, the country gets more chaos and less law. Enforcement is the remedy, not the outrage.
