As the saying goes: You can wish in one hand ...
Yesterday, ICE agents in New York City opened fire on an illegal alien suspected of gang activity, a convicted felon whom the state kept releasing rather than transferring to the Department of Homeland Security. The circumstances of the shooting, which left Oscar Belgal wounded and his 5-year-old son unharmed, have not been fully released. It did, however, prompt Mayor Zohran Mamdani to call the White House, where he claimed to have talked with Donald Trump for two hours in attempting to get Belgal back on the streets:
ICE agents shot and wounded a suspected migrant gang member in the Bronx Thursday while a 5-year-old boy, believed to be his son, sat in the back of his SUV — sparking a large, rowdy protest and prompting Mayor Zohran Mamdani to demand the federal agency leave the city in a fiery speech.
The shooting happened outside 2 Marble Hill Ave. around 4:20 p.m. when the feds tried to arrest a 28-year-old “criminal illegal alien” from the Dominican Republic, and things quickly went off script, according to the Department of Homeland Security and sources. ...
“ICE put the man in an unmarked vehicle and whisked him away,” Mamdani confirmed, noting he tried — and failed — to convince President Trump to release the alleged gangbanger from federal custody.
“For the past two hours, I’ve been on the phone with President Trump and [DHS] Secretary Mullin negotiating the release of the man ICE agents shot. Those negotiations were unsuccessful,” Hizzoner said.
Needless to say, this is entirely performative. No one apparently disputes Belgal's status as an illegal alien. No one apparently disputes his status as an ex-felon, either. He pled guilty to a reduced charge of fourth-degree larceny after first being arrested for robbery in 2023, and he's currently out on bail for selling drugs. Belgal should have been deported after his first conviction. Donald Trump would be the last president to set a criminal illegal alien loose, especially one who is suspected of ties to criminal gangs like the Trinitarios, which is currently the target of a RICO prosecution by the Department of Justice.
Mamdani wanted to gin up a mob rather than wait for an investigation into the use of lethal force. He got what he wanted later in the evening:
Politicians, including Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Dem congressional nominee Darializa Avila Chevalier, also held a press conference blasting ICE near the scene on Thursday evening.
The protest turned violent late into the night when cops and demonstrators tussled over barricades, pushing on either side. Avila Chevalier was knocked to the ground in the chaos and multiple protesters were cuffed by the NYPD, footage shows.
Mamdani demanded that Trump answer for the ICE operation:
“What does Trump have to say about all of this?” he demanded.
Funny you should ask. As it happens, Trump has a rally planned in Syracuse tonight, and he will have plenty to say about Mamdani, Kathy Hochul, and how the city and state of New York hide criminal illegal aliens from accountability. The rally follows an attack on an off-duty NYPD detective by two illegal aliens in a botched Bronx robbery:
President Trump is expected to tear into Gov. Kathy Hochul over New York’s “sanctuary” status when he rallies with GOP gubernatorial hopeful Bruce Blakeman in Syracuse on Friday following a pair of violent incidents that have outraged both sides of the immigration debate.
Last week, two illegal immigrants with criminal rap sheets allegedly stabbed an off-duty New York Police Department detective in the Bronx after attempting to rob him.
The suspects, 25-year-old D’Angelo Caraballo and 24-year-old Sneider Mejia Bautista, both Dominican nationals, were nabbed early Wednesday after attempting to hide in a basement in Lynn, Mass.
Regardless of whether the use of lethal force was justified, the danger would not have existed in the first place if New York abided by the law. When illegal aliens commit crimes, and violent crimes like robbery in particular, the proper action for public safety is to alert DHS and transfer custody of the detainee. Had New York cooperated with DHS, ICE agents would not have to conduct street operations to re-arrest illegal aliens who should have been transferred to their custody administratively. The reason that these incidents happen in "sanctuary" jurisdictions is because of the sanctuary policies that obstruct the enforcement of federal law.
It's not ICE that is "rotten to its core." It's the cities and states that defy federal law and make it necessary for federal agents to conduct far riskier operations to enforce it. Mamdani, Hochul, and other "sanctuary" politicians want a back-door open-borders policy, and they want incidents like these in order to demagogue and obfuscate their own responsibility in creating dangers for enforcement that never should be necessary in the first place.
That doesn't necessarily mean that the use of lethal force in this specific instance by ICE agents was justified. The proximity of the young child to the gunfire requires even more scrutiny of the situation. However, the last people who should be commenting on this, let alone investigating it, are the demagogues who created the environment that necessitates dangerous arrest scenarios.
Update: DHS is pushing back hard on Mamdani already. Bengal (name apparently corrected from first reports) used his car to attack ICE agents, using a deadly weapon that justified the use of lethal force. From their emailed statement:
On October 8, at approximately 4:00 PM ET, ICE officers were conducting a targeted enforcement operation in the Bronx, New York, to arrest Oscar Bengal, a criminal illegal alien from the Dominican Republic. His criminal history includes a prior criminal conviction for fourth-degree grand larceny: property taken from person, and prior arrests for first-degree robbery: forcible theft armed with a deadly weapon, criminal sale of a controlled substance: narcotic drug, possession of stolen property, and assault. After his conviction, he was sentenced in April 2025 to five years of probation. Bengal has associations with the Trinitarios gang, the same gang that brutally shot a CBP officer last year. He was the target of an investigation by ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) into the shooting of the CBP officer. The gang is known for theft using weapons and mopeds.
ICE officers attempted to arrest Bengal and used their vehicles to block him in. He refused lawful orders to exit his vehicle, then accelerated and smashed into two government vehicles. He then weaponized his vehicle and accelerated toward other officers. The officers, believing that their lives and the lives of their partners and the general public were in danger, used their training and fired their weapons. Bengal was superficially struck by one of the bullets or fragments in the neck. He stopped his vehicle, at which point ICE officers arrested him, rendered first aid, and then took him to the hospital. Because of his lengthy criminal history and history of fleeing law enforcement, ICE placed him in a detention facility outside the state of New York.
Sounds like a case of nearly fatal FAFO. And it's telling that Mamdani rushed to vent his outrage rather than ask what actually happened first.
Editor’s Note: Democrat politicians and their radical supporters will do everything they can to interfere with and threaten ICE agents enforcing our immigration laws.
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