ICE shoots a father in Marble Hill with reckless impunity

By Alma Cordero · Reporting from El Paso · October 10, 2026

When federal agents shot Oscar Belgal in front of his child, Washington rushed to defend the reckless attack, proving ICE operates with total impunity and must be abolished.

Men in vests and masks opened fire on a father with his child in the back seat

The policy always lands first on the asphalt, right where the bullet meets the bone. On a Thursday afternoon, in the residential neighborhood of Marble Hill, plainclothes operatives converged on a silver car. They wore construction vests and face masks that concealed their identities. According to Gothamist, at least one U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fired seven rounds into the vehicle. Inside that car sat 28-year-old Oscar Belgal and his five-year-old son, who was coming home from school.

The bullet caught Belgal in the neck just below his left ear, leaving fragments lodged in his body. Witnesses like Orlando Perez told reporters he had to throw himself on the floor so he would not get shot. Bullets flew in his direction. Ruth Hilaria, a deli worker nearby, heard the small boy crying for his father after the glass shattered. NYPD body camera footage released on Friday shows officers arriving to find Belgal handcuffed and bleeding on the ground. A man in a reflective vest and a long gun stood nearby, as reported by CBS News.

Federal immigration agents have now shot at least 21 people and killed seven of them since Donald Trump returned to office, according to RTÉ. The mechanism here is the exact echo of the Renee Good shooting in Minneapolis. Federal agents opened fire on a driver during an urban vehicle encounter. Top Department of Homeland Security officials immediately rushed to defend the lethal force as self-defense against a weaponized car. The script never changes because the impunity never stops. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and top ICE official Marcos Charles took to the microphones to blame the victim. They claimed Belgal refused orders and rammed government cars. But no badge, no uniform, and no law in this country sanctions the terrorizing of a five-year-old boy.

Local leaders demand answers as federal officials defend reckless violence

The machinery of the security state revved into motion the moment the smoke cleared. According to ABC7 Eyewitness News, Belgal was rushed to NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital and discharged at 9:58 p.m. He was immediately dragged across the George Washington Bridge to Delaney Hall in Newark before being locked up in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. Federal prosecutors and DHS officials piled on his past arrests and alleged Trinitarios gang ties. They hoped a rap sheet would make the public forget that federal agents riddled a family car with lead in broad daylight.

The defense offered by Washington is an insult to anyone who has ever lived near a border or an immigrant neighborhood. Secretary Mullin claimed agents feared for their lives and did not know a child was in the vehicle, as reported by the BBC. But the sheer recklessness of operating like an unregulated hit squad in a crowded New York City neighborhood defies all basic standards of policing. Governor Kathy Hochul noted that New York has over 500 law enforcement agencies making hundreds of thousands of arrests every year. None of them shoot into vehicles without knowing what is inside or open fire near schools in the afternoon.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani spent two hours on the phone with President Donald Trump and Secretary Mullin trying to negotiate Belgal's release. Federal agents whisked Belgal away in an unmarked vehicle anyway. Mamdani called the shooting unconscionable and demanded that ICE be abolished entirely. Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters flooded the streets near West 220th Street and Broadway by nine o'clock on Thursday night. They clashed with police as the community's outrage boiled over into the asphalt.

Sanctuary walls collide with federal agents operating with total impunity

This is not a simple law enforcement dispute. It is a direct constitutional collision between a city that refuses to be occupied and a federal agency that operates like an invading army. Mayor Mamdani previously signed an executive order requiring ICE agents to obtain judicial warrants in New York City. He signed it after federal border agents killed civilians in January 2026. That order rests on the fundamental principle that local streets belong to the people who walk them, not to federal thugs in construction vests playing soldier.

The federal government will likely escalate enforcement actions across New York City over the next thirty to ninety days to challenge these sanctuary directives. That posture mirrors the aggressive BORTAC surges of the previous administration. They will use Belgal's file as a shield, attempting to put the victim on trial in federal court to justify an unconstitutional raid. But the people of Marble Hill and Upper Manhattan have long memories. Months before this shooting, local elected officials acted. Councilmembers Pierina Sanchez, Carmen De La Rosa, and Eric Dinowitz, alongside U.S. Representative Adriano Espaillat, sent a letter demanding that Target prohibit ICE from staging in neighborhood parking lots. The community knew the danger was parked on their blocks.

Justice for Oscar Belgal and his five-year-old son requires more than federal judges blocking deportations or temporary pauses on enforcement. It requires the immediate termination of the agent who fired seven rounds into a family car. It requires dropping all federal custody maneuvers. And it requires the complete dismantling of an immigration enforcement apparatus that treats human lives as collateral damage. Until local leaders lock out an agency that operates with impunity, our neighborhoods will remain a tinderbox waiting for the next trigger-happy operative to pull the pin.

ICE shoots a father in Marble Hill with reckless impunity

Men in vests and masks opened fire on a father with his child in the back seat

Local leaders demand answers as federal officials defend reckless violence

Sanctuary walls collide with federal agents operating with total impunity

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