Mayor Zohran Mamdani is leading a coalition of more than 100 elected officials in New York state in urging parking lot and garage owners across the five boroughs to block federal immigration agents from using their properties as staging areas.
In a letter to private parking operators, Mamdani asked owners not to rent, lend or otherwise make their properties available to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and to tell the agency directly that it is not permitted to use their facilities.
The letter comes after an ICE agent shot 28-year-old Oscar Belgal in the neck in Marble Hill on Oct. 8 while his 5-year-old son was in the car. ICE agents had been using a privately owned parking lot a few blocks away as a staging area, according to the mayor’s office.
Mamdani’s letter also mentions reports of ICE using several other private lots across the city to conduct enforcement operations.
“ICE is using private parking facilities across the City as staging grounds for its operations: from two bank parking lots on Northern Boulevard in Queens, to a garage on Morton Street in Manhattan,” he wrote.
“Each such use, whether part of a formal or informal arrangement or no arrangement at all, gives ICE a launching point for operations that have terrified and terrorized local communities, and risks placing your property, your employees, and your customers at the center of that,” Mamdani continued.
The mayor asked parking operators to stand with immigrant New Yorkers, noting immigrants make up more than one-third of New York City’s population and 43% of its workforce.
“Immigrant New Yorkers account for hundreds of billions of dollars in economic activity every year. When immigrant New Yorkers are afraid to drive to work, run errands, or park their cars, every business in this city feels it,” Mamdani wrote.
He said owners, like a garage operator on Morton Street that removed ICE vehicles after neighbors raised concerns, help to “advance public safety by protecting their own staff and customers, as well as fellow New Yorkers.”
The mayor’s office said city law already restricts the use of city-owned property for federal civil immigration enforcement. However, those restrictions do not apply to privately owned property in the same way.
Mamdani’s letter invites parking operators who want to discuss the request to contact city Commissioner of Immigrant Affairs Faiza Ali.