Demonstrators gathered that evening to condemn the shooting, saying the incident highlighted the dangers posed by the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement operations, while scuffles broke out between some protesters and police.
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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani described the incident as an “unconscionable and incredibly serious situation”, saying initial reports indicated that federal immigration agents had surrounded the man and the child in the Marble Hill neighbourhood before firing multiple rounds.
The child was believed to be physically unharmed, Mamdani said, adding that he had called Trump and would demand an end to all ICE enforcement operations in the city.
“I will not stand by while ICE agents terrorise our communities,” Mamdani said.
Addressing demonstrators and reporters at the scene later that evening, the mayor condemned the agency’s conduct and linked the shooting to wider concerns about federal immigration enforcement.
“Today’s shooting is only further devastating confirmation of what we have long known, which is that ICE operates with impunity, that they sow chaos and terror across our country, that they have killed far more of our neighbours than they could ever have claimed to save,” Mamdani said.
He called for the agency to be dismantled, declaring that it “must be abolished”.
City Council member Carmen De La Rosa, who represents the area where the shooting occurred, also condemned the incident.
“We are heartbroken and enraged,” she said.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul said she had spoken with Trump and US Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Thursday night, urging the federal government to halt ICE operations in the state and release evidence from the shooting.
“I expressed outrage on behalf of New Yorkers and urged them to halt ICE enforcement operations in New York,” she said in a statement.
“I also asked that any body camera footage of the shooting be released to the public, so we can establish the facts and get to the truth.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, said its officers had been conducting a “targeted enforcement operation” in the Bronx at about 4pm to arrest a 28-year-old Dominican national with a criminal conviction, identified by city police as Oscar Belgal.
The department said an officer “discharged his weapon” and that “the criminal illegal alien” was injured, adding that the incident remained under investigation.
However, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch provided a more detailed account of the shooting, saying Belgal was pulling into a parking space when a federal officer in plain clothes approached with a gun drawn, followed by another federal officer who was also not in uniform.
Belgal began pulling the car forward before at least one officer fired seven rounds, striking him below his left ear, Tisch said.
She confirmed that the five-year-old child was unharmed and had been reunited with a relative.
According to the New York Police Department, Belgal remained conscious and was receiving treatment at a nearby hospital.
The shooting has intensified scrutiny of ICE, which has faced mounting protests and criticism over its enforcement tactics under the Trump administration.
In January, federal immigration agents shot dead two US citizens in Minneapolis: Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, who was killed by an ICE agent on January 7, and Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse, who was shot by a US border agent.
Following Good’s killing, Trump administration officials labelled her a “domestic terrorist”, even as video footage of the incident raised questions about claims that she had tried to run over an agent.
The federal government subsequently removed local authorities from the investigation, rejected calls for a civil rights probe and deployed hundreds of additional agents to Minnesota.
The number of federal agents in the state rose to 3,000 as protests against the killings and the wider immigration crackdown spread to hundreds of US cities.
Trump blamed the shift in public opinion about ICE on what he described as unfair media coverage, urging the Department of Homeland Security and the agency to publicise the “violent criminals” they arrest.
The agency has been tasked with deporting one million people annually, while its expanding operations have prompted concerns among critics over the scale and consequences of the administration’s enforcement campaign.
ICE doubled in size during the first year of Trump’s second administration, reaching more than 22,000 agents by January.
It has also become the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency, with about $75 billion allocated to it over four years under a tax bill Trump signed last year.