ICE officer shoots New York immigrant driving car with child inside

Immigration and Customs Enforcement received heavy backlash after what officials described as a targeted immigration operation on Thursday ended with a 28-year-old Dominican migrant shot in the neck. The shooting happened while migrant Oscar Belgal was parking his car, with a 5-year-old boy inside the vehicle, New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a Thursday night press conference.

What happened? Security footage showed a plainclothes ICE officer approaching the driver’s side door with a drawn gun and another plainclothes agent approaching from the driver’s side headlight while Belgal was parking. Belgal then started moving forward and drove out of view from the camera before the shooting occurred, Tisch said. At least one agent fired seven rounds, hitting Belgal in the neck below his left ear, she continued.

City police officers near the scene responded to the shots, and found the injured suspect handcuffed on the ground. NYPD officers drove Belgal to a hospital, where his condition had stabilized, Tisch said. The commissioner added that the child inside the car, whom they believed to be Belgal’s son, was safe and under the care of relatives. She reiterated that New York Police bore no role in the operation and subsequent shooting, apart from arriving at the scene and rendering aid.

Tisch acknowledged Belgal’s criminal record during the press conference, including a 2023 arrest for robbery, which he later pleaded guilty to. Belgal was arrested again in 2025 for the criminal sale of controlled substances, a case which remained pending in court, she added.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani appeared alongside Tisch, characterizing the situation as an outrage. ICE continued undermining public safety and the agency must be abolished, Mamdani said. The mayor unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate Belgal’s release during a phone call lasting several hours with President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Mamdani said. Belgal was whisked away in an unmarked ICE vehicle moments earlier, he added.

Did DHS corroborate the situation details? Homeland Security released a Thursday statement confirming that an ICE officer shot an unnamed Dominican man during what it described as a targeted immigration operation in the Bronx. DHS did not describe the circumstances leading up to the shooting, simply stating that an officer fired, the migrant was injured, and DHS officers immediately rendered aid at the scene.

DHS described the injured individual as a criminal migrant with a criminal grand larceny record, along with multiple previous arrests for assault, robbery, drugs, and weapons possession. The injured suspect also held ties to the Trinitarios gang, which brutally shot a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officer last year, DHS added. Immigration officials cast blame on Democratic sanctuary policies that allowed dangerous migrants to return to the streets after being arrested. ICE officers should not have to risk their lives because sanctuary politicians refuse to cooperate with federal law, DHS wrote.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul released a Thursday night statement sharing her outrage at the incident, adding that no child should experience gunfire. Hochul also spoke with Trump and Mullin about the shooting, and called for the agents’ bodycam footage to be released to better understand the incident, according to a separate Thursday statement.