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NEW YORK, May 9, 2026 — Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is making no apologies for the ICE agents who shot a man in the Bronx on Thursday. Mullin says the officers had only seconds to decide whether their own lives, the lives of their partners, and the public were at risk when they opened fire. He is also using the moment to go after Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul over what he calls their silence when police are attacked.
At the center of the clash is Oscar Belgal, 28, who was shot in the neck while a 5-year-old boy sat in the car with him. Federal agents say they did not know a child was in the vehicle. For Mullin, that only makes the suspect more to blame, not the officers.
“The public outcry should be also towards this criminal, this thug, this gangbanger, this possible murderer,” Mullin told reporters. “That rage should be with him for endangering the five-year-old.”
Federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations were conducting a targeted enforcement operation around 4 p.m. when they caught up with Belgal in the Bronx. DHS describes Belgal as a Dominican national with a criminal history that includes a prior grand larceny conviction and arrests for assault, robbery, drug possession, and weapons possession. Agents had also tried to arrest him back in September, according to DHS, and he managed to get away.
Belgal was a focus of an HSI investigation into last year’s shooting of a Customs and Border Protection officer in the Lincoln Heights area. DHS says Belgal has ties to the Trinitarios gang, the group it links to that shooting, though officials stopped short of accusing Belgal of carrying it out.
At the arrest scene, agents used vehicles to box him in. DHS says Belgal refused repeated commands to get out, then accelerated into two ICE vehicles and drove toward other officers. Marcos Charles, the acting executive associate director for HSI, said the agents fired their weapons only after concluding they were facing immediate danger.
“The officers, using their training and believing that their lives, the lives of their partners and the general public were in danger, fired their weapons,” Charles said.
Belgal was hit in the neck. Charles called the wound superficial, likely from a bullet or a fragment. Agents arrested him, provided medical aid, and had him taken to a hospital, where DHS says he is alive and receiving treatment.
The NYPD also released body-camera footage from the first city officers to arrive. It shows them responding to a 911 call about a man shot and quickly moving Belgal to the hospital for medical care.
Belgal has since been moved to a detention facility outside New York, according to Mullin, because of his alleged criminal history and previous attempt to flee. Mullin said DHS will seek criminal prosecution and removal proceedings.
Mullin did not limit himself to the facts of the shooting. He turned his fire on Mamdani and Hochul, accusing them of staying silent after an NYPD officer was stabbed seven times last week. Mullin says the suspects were two people in the country illegally, both with criminal histories, and that ICE had filed detainers on them.
“NYPD officers are some of the finest officers we have out there,” Mullin said. “Just last week, one was stabbed seven times by illegals. One that we had a detainer on that New York released. Both had extensive criminal backgrounds.”
“Did the mayor of New York say anything about that?” he continued. “Did anybody come out for the officer that was stabbed seven times by these criminals?”
“Not a word was said,” Mullin added. “Not a word was said by the mayor. Not a word was said by the governor.”
Mamdani, though, is pushing back just as hard. The mayor held a news conference condemning the shooting and calling for ICE to be removed from the city. On X, he made his frustration plain.
“I am angry tonight. Because today ICE shot a New Yorker,” Mamdani wrote. “They shot a New Yorker while his five-year-old child was in the car. ICE makes this city less safe. We want them out. Now.”
Mullin called that language dangerous and accused the mayor of engaging in political theater. He also pushed back on Mamdani’s claim that ICE “has killed more of our neighbors than they claim to save.”
The shooting is also drawing fresh attention to New York’s sanctuary policies.
DHS says Belgal was arrested by the NYPD on Dec. 7, 2023, and released a few days later. The department blames New York’s sanctuary rules for that release. Under city policy, local authorities generally do not hold people on ICE civil detainer requests without a judicial warrant.
Mullin said he even offered to hand Belgal over to the NYPD if the city wanted to pursue charges. He claims Mamdani declined.
Behind the scenes, Mullin said he also spoke with Hochul. According to the secretary, the governor offered to help DHS apprehend more than 100 people in the state illegally — as long as the agency gave the state notice. But then, Mullin says, Hochul asked federal officials to pause enforcement in New York.
“We’re not putting a pause on enforcement,” Mullin said. “Our job is to enforce the nation’s laws.”
The legal review will now focus on whether the officers were justified in using deadly force. Under the Fourth Amendment, officers can use force when a reasonable person in the same situation would believe that the suspect poses an imminent threat of serious physical harm. Driving a car at officers can check that box. The presence of a child in the vehicle complicates public perception, but the constitutional question depends mostly on what the officers knew at the moment.
Since Belgal survived, federal prosecutors could also bring charges related to the alleged assault on federal officers. At the same time, DHS will move forward with immigration enforcement. Both tracks can run at the same time.
The FBI and HSI remain involved in the shooting investigation, and DHS has said little beyond its initial account. That has not stopped either side from using the case to make a broader political argument.
For Mullin, the case is proof that New York’s approach to immigration is putting people in danger. For Mamdani, it is proof that ICE itself is the danger.
That split is not going to resolve quickly. With federal agents continuing to operate inside the city and New York leaders refusing to back down, the Bronx shooting has become another flashpoint in the long-running fight over who gets to enforce the nation’s immigration laws — and how.
