MANHATTAN (CN) — Oscar Belgal, the 28-year-old man shot and killed Thursday by ICE agents in the Bronx, still has a bullet lodged in his body more than 24 hours after the incident, his lawyers said in court Friday.
“He’s still suffering,” Paige Austin of the nonprofit Make the Road New York told a federal judge.
After being unable to locate Belgal for nearly an entire day following the shooting, Austin revealed that the father of two was currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. She said she was able to speak to him for the first time Friday afternoon.
The hearing, which Belgal did not attend, came as his lawyer sought an emergency solution to ensure he would not be deported while he challenged his detention with a habeas corpus petition. Earlier Friday, a federal judge asked the government to keep Belgal in custody only in New York or New Jersey.
According to the government, Belgal was taken to an undisclosed location in New Jersey the night of the shooting before being returned to New York on Friday. A federal judge will now have to determine which district can hear Belgal’s petition, based on his physical circumstances at the time the petition was filed.
Belgal’s lawyers say they were left in the dark about their client for almost an entire day.
He was shot in the neck around 4 p.m. Thursday while driving in New York’s Marble Hill neighborhood and was arrested at the scene. Her 5-year-old son was in the back seat.
Following the incident, ICE took Belgal to a nearby hospital, where protesters clashed with law enforcement until late Thursday evening.
That’s when Belgal was evacuated from the hospital in a fleet of ICE vehicles, according to a habeas petition reviewed by Courthouse News.
“Although (Mr. Belgal) was initially hospitalized, it appears that ICE acted quickly to transfer him out of the hospital to an unknown location, raising serious concerns about his health and well-being,” his legal team at Make the Road New York argued in a filing Friday morning.
Last month, ICE made it more difficult to locate some detained immigrants with deportation orders. The move was criticized by immigration lawyers who have since struggled to locate their clients.
Belgal’s legal team says it was especially important to track him down in this case because they will need access to his medical records and potentially witnesses to the shooting.
“The urgency of Mr. (Belgal’s) case, and in particular the need to obtain authorization and medical records, makes immediate, in-person access essential to the preparation and preservation of his legal claims,” they wrote. “Preventing his transfer would also facilitate visits to his family, particularly his two minor children.”
In addition to the 5-year-old child who accompanied him Thursday, Belgal also has a 1-year-old son, according to his lawyers.
ICE officials say they moved Belgal out of the state because of his spotty law enforcement past.
“Due to Mr. Belgal’s long criminal history and known flight, we have placed him in a detention center outside of New York State,” Marcos Charles, associate executive director of enforcement and removal operations at ICE, said at a press conference Friday morning.
ICE officials say Belgal is an undocumented immigrant from the Dominican Republic who has a lengthy criminal record, including theft and grand larceny.
Charles claimed he was also part of a gang in New York and was currently on probation for a 2025 sentencing. He said Belgal was the target of a Homeland Security investigation.
While attempting to arrest Belgal on Thursday, Charles claimed that ICE used cars to block him, but that he refused to exit the vehicle and instead “armed” it and accelerated toward other agents.
ICE fired seven shots, according to law enforcement.
“Mr. Belgal was struck superficially by one of the bullets or fragments in the neck,” Charles said.
It’s a similar argument that ICE has used to justify deadly force in other shootings involving the agency, including the killing of Renée Good in Minnesota earlier this year.
Speaking to reporters after Friday afternoon’s hearing, Harold Solis of Make the Road New York rejected the government’s justification for the violence.
“Whether or not someone has a criminal history, it is not legal and it is not acceptable to shoot a father…with his son in the back seat,” Solis said.
The shooting sparked a statewide outcry. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Thursday evening he was “outraged” by the incident and personally called President Donald Trump in an unsuccessful attempt to secure Belgal’s release.
“We know ICE is rotten to the core,” Mamdani said at a late-night press conference. “ICE undermines public safety. This is an agency that should be abolished.”
Subscribe to our free newsletters
Our weekly newsletter Closing arguments offers the latest news on current trials, major litigation and courthouse decisions in the United States and around the world, while the monthly Under the lights cooks up legal dirt on Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.
Gn usa
