Mamdani, AOC call for ICE abolition as DHS rejects New York enforcement pause

Ocasio-Cortez calls ICE ‘rogue, lawless’ after Bronx shooting

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin rejected Governor Kathy Hochul’s request for a pause on Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in New York on Friday, a day after a federal officer shot a man in a car where a five-year-old child was sitting in the Bronx. “No, we are not putting a pause on enforcement,” Mullin said, accusing New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani of failing to enforce the law or stand up for the city’s police.

Mullin said the ICE officers involved in the shooting did not know there was a child in the vehicle of the man they were targeting. The Department of Homeland Security later said that the man was from the Dominican Republic and has prior convictions, with the New York Police Department also noting previous arrests. The 28-year-old man has not been named and his relationship to the child was not clear, although it was reported on Friday that the child was now being looked after by other family members.

The shooting occurred as children were coming home from school in the busy Marble Hill neighborhood of the south Bronx in New York City. At least seven shots were reportedly fired and the man was hit in the neck late Thursday afternoon, according to early reports cited by Mamdani. Early reports indicated that agents had surrounded the man and the five-year-old child in his car in a residential area before firing multiple rounds, Mamdani said in a statement. The child was physically unharmed.

Mamdani, Ocasio-Cortez and Hochul each demanded that ICE be abolished or cease operations in New York. Mamdani called the incident “unconscionable” and said Thursday night that ICE, part of the Department of Homeland Security, had “whisked him away” from the NewYork-Presbyterian Allen hospital in upper Manhattan. At a press conference, Mamdani described his efforts to secure the man’s release. “I have been on the phone with President Trump and secretary Mullin negotiating the release of the man ICE agents shot. Those negotiations were unsuccessful,” he said. He demanded that the Trump administration halt ICE’s enforcement actions in New York City. “ICE is rotten to its core,” he said. Both Hochul and Mamdani spoke to Donald Trump and Markwayne Mullin by phone.

“What happened today was an outrage,” Mamdani said late Thursday. “When ICE agents opened fire, a five-year-old child – a five-year-old child! – was in the back seat of that car. Thank God that child is physically unharmed.”

Hochul demanded that ICE cease its enforcement operations in New York and said she expressed outrage to the Trump administration on behalf of all New Yorkers. She said the incident could easily have ended in tragedy. “No child should ever have to experience the terror of gunfire,” she said.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined Mamdani in calling for ICE to be abolished. “ICE is a rogue, lawless and paramilitary surveillance agency. It does not belong in New York City and it should not exist in the United States of America. Abolish ICE,” she said in a statement. The representative also condemned the retail giant Target for allowing federal enforcement teams to use its parking lots as staging areas from which to launch arrest operations. She and others called for an independent investigation of the shooting.

Witnesses told local media they heard the child yelling at the officers after the shooting. One witness told the City Reporter, a local news outlet, that she saw a man bleeding on the ground in front of a car and observed an agent holding a small child. Videos also showed bullet holes in the windshield of an SUV, NY1 reported.

Protesters began to gather in the area soon after the shooting, with some demonstrators holding signs saying “Jail all killer ICE agents” and “Leave our neighbors alone.” Hands Off NYC and the New York Immigration Coalition, two local groups, held an emergency press conference in the area where elected officials and organizers expressed outrage and decried ICE’s ongoing presence in the neighborhood.

“ICE, get the fuck out of our neighborhood,” Vanessa Gibson, the Bronx borough president, told the crowd. “I’m angry that we have to be here … We are a working-class community. We don’t deserve this type of treatment from the White House.” She encouraged the crowd to get involved in opposing ICE, saying: “There are more of us than there are of them. I want this to be a moment that we turn into a movement.”

Jumaane Williams, the city’s elected public advocate, said “fuck ICE” and “fuck Trump,” adding: “It is our time to stand up. Those of us who have more privilege – we must take more risk to protect those who don’t.”

New Yorkers of all ages flowed into the streets from the nearby 1 subway train, and protesters soon also gathered at a local hospital where the man shot by ICE was reported to be receiving treatment. Outside the hospital, the NYPD set up barricades and protesters clashed with police officers in what the Guardian described as a chaotic scene. Darializa Avila Chevalier, the incoming Democratic New York congresswoman, rushed to the protests and was knocked over as local police and demonstrators clashed.

Demonstrators banged drums and shouted “Shut it down” and “ICE out!” as cars driving by honked in support.

Standing outside the hospital, Murad Awawdeh, the president of the New York Immigration Coalition, said he wanted to see an independent investigation into the shooting led by New York officials. He also called on DHS to release footage of the shooting and for the officer who fired the shots to face prosecution. “The pain that you’re witnessing is people who are witnessing their neighbors, their family members, their friends being ripped away,” Awawdeh said.

The Guardian reported that a similar incident occurred in Texas last month, after a man was shot by an ICE officer in Austin and, despite a bullet lodged in his back, was taken by the federal authorities from a local hospital to ICE detention about 140 miles away.

The Guardian also reported that at least 20 people have been shot by federal immigration agents under the second Trump administration, alongside a rise in deaths in detention. ICE has been stepping up arrests all year in a number of ways despite withdrawing massed militarized ranks from Minneapolis in January and adopting a more covert approach to enforcement, the Guardian reported.