The New York mayor, Zohran Mamdani, on Sunday compared US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s recent shooting of a man in the Manhattan enclave of Marble Hill to a mass shooting scene – and called for an end to the agency’s operations in his city.
Mamdani’s joined MS NOW’s Jacob Soboroff for his first media interview since ICE agents shot and wounded Oscar Belgal, 28, during an enforcement operation while he was in his car with his five-year-old child also inside.
Belgal was struck in the neck while the child was physically unharmed and left in the care of family members.
Describing his perspective on videos of the shooting scene that have emerged since, Mamdani told Soboroff it was unclear even to the mayor that the agents in the footage are law enforcement personnel based on their being in plainclothes.
“What you can see in that video and the videos that have been released since, people, bystanders outside [are] unsure as to what they were even seeing because in that imagery – it feels like you’re looking at a mass shooter as opposed to seeing someone who is reportedly representing a federal agency,” Mamdani said.
Additionally, Mamdani contended that ICE agents “view the law as a suggestion” – alluding to how the New York police department prohibits officers from firing at someone in a vehicle in most circumstances.
“There is a reason why law enforcement agents are supposed to wear identifiable information and uniforms,” the mayor also said.
Mamdani said he spoke with Donald Trump and the president’s homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin on Thursday evening. And the mayor reiterated that he sees no place for ICE in New York City despite the mass deportation agenda that Trump has pursued throughout his second presidency.
The mayor said that he made clear that New York police would be conducting a review into Belgal’s shooting and its aftermath, which saw large street protests.
Mamdani said Belgal remained in custody at the time of Sunday’s interviews. During a court hearing for him on Friday, attorneys said he had been booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center, in Brooklyn, which is newly being used to detain immigrants.
He had been temporarily brought to a privately run ICE facility in New Jersey after being discharged from the hospital where he received medical treatment for the shooting.
Since Trump returned to office in early 2025, US immigration officers have shot at least two dozen people, according to one analysis. That includes three US citizens who were killed.
Thursday’s shooting in Marble Hill – which geographically is in the Bronx but is considered part of Manhattan – comes as ICE arrests have hit record levels. The agency reached those numbers after pivoting from the high-profile raids it carried out in 2025 to more quietly dispatching agents into communities across the US.
