At about 4 p.m. Thursday, ICE agents attempted to detain 28-year-old Dominican national Oscar Belgal in the Marble Hill neighborhood of Manhattan. Authorities said a single ICE agent fired seven shots, striking Belgal just below his left ear, while his 5-year-old son sat in the back seat of the car. The boy was not injured and is with his mother. Belgal was taken to New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital, discharged just before 10 p.m., moved to ICE custody in Newark, and then booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn on Friday, where his lawyers said he still has a bullet in his body.

The surprising development came Friday: U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken, an Obama appointee, issued a two-page order blocking the government from deporting Belgal while a petition challenging his detention remains pending. The judge also barred federal authorities from transferring him to any facility outside the Southern or Eastern Districts of New York or the District of New Jersey without prior court approval.

The NYPD, which was not involved in the shooting, released bodycam video Friday showing officers arriving moments after gunfire. The footage shows Belgal conscious and handcuffed, surrounded by plainclothes ICE agents outside his car; officers spent about a minute at the scene before carrying him to a patrol car and reaching the emergency room 90 seconds later. Surveillance video from two vantage points shows plainclothes officers approaching with guns drawn, one punching the driver's side window before the car pulls away, then pedestrians ducking for cover as shots ring out. Bullet holes appeared in the car and spent shell casings lay in the street.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said agents were in fear for their lives, were unaware a child was in the car, and that Belgal accelerated and rammed two other vehicles after fleeing a September attempt to detain him. ICE official Marcos Charles said officers believed their lives and the public were in danger. Belgal's lawyers at Make the Road New York countered that it is 'not lawful, not okay, to shoot a father in the afternoon with his son in the backseat.' DHS also cited Belgal's prior robbery and drug arrests and alleged Trinitarios gang ties. The discrepancy over whether the vehicle moved toward agents or away remains central.

The shooting ignited protests in the Bronx, with demonstrators chanting 'ICE off our streets now.' Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the incident an 'outrage' and demanded that President Trump end all ICE enforcement in the city, saying 'this city wants ICE out.' Gov. Kathy Hochul called for a pause in all ICE actions in the state, saying New York's hundreds of policing agencies 'don't shoot into vehicles at all.' Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said her office is conducting a thorough investigation guided by the evidence and the law.

Belgal's habeas petition remains pending before Judge Oetken, who has kept him within reach of courts in New York and New Jersey. The DHS incident remains under investigation, and the Bronx District Attorney's office has not said what charges, if any, may follow. The case now tests whether a federal judge's order can constrain rapid ICE transfers and removals in high-profile shootings, and it has become the sharpest flashpoint yet between New York officials and the Trump administration's immigration enforcement operations.