Protests erupted in New York City on Thursday, after a federal immigration agent shot and wounded a man in the Marble Hill neighborhood of northern Manhattan. Seven shots rang out in quick succession just after 4 p.m. on a crowded street as people walked home from work or accompanied their children home from school. Twenty-eight-year-old Oscar Belgal was struck in the neck. His 5-year-old child, who was in the back seat, was physically unharmed. Belgal was taken to a local hospital, where hundreds of protesters soon gathered to demand his release, chanting ”ICE off our streets now!” and “We want justice!” New York police arrested four people and assaulted many others, including congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier, who was knocked to the ground. Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he called President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to negotiate Belgal’s release but was rebuffed. Mamdani expressed outrage over the shooting and repeated his call to abolish ICE.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani: ”ICE undermines public safety. It makes us less safe. New York City will not stand by while ICE agents shoot New Yorkers, and we will not back down from the demand that so many, including myself, have put forward time and again. This is an agency that must be abolished.”
This comes after the Trump administration ordered immigration agents to increase their daily arrest total to 3,000 arrests — up from 2,000 per day — through the midterm elections. After headlines, we’ll speak with Democratic congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier and City Councilmember Carmen De La Rosa.