Yesterday afternoon a plainclothes ICE agent, disguised as a construction worker, opened fire on a New York City man and his five-year-old child in broad daylight in the Bronx neighborhood of Marble Hill. Twenty-eight year old Oscar Belgal was picking up his son from school when he was confronted by agents, at least one of whom fired seven shots from a military grade AR-15 automatic rifle through his windshield as he attempted to drive away. Belgal was struck in the neck by one of those bullets. Miraculously his son was not shot. Afterwards, rather than administering care, ICE agents handcuffed Belgal, who could be seen twitching on the ground and calling out for help. Belgal was eventually taken to Allen Hospital, just a block away, and his son was released to his family.
Outraged neighborhood residents and people from across the Bronx and Upper Manhattan quickly descended on the scene in the hundreds to hurl insults at ICE and protest, but also to defend Belgal and attempt to stop agents from kidnapping him again from his hospital bed. This powerful demonstration of self organization and community self defense was quickly met with repression by Mamdani’s New York Police Department, which eventually arrested at least four protesters. No ICE agents were arrested or have yet been charged with any crimes.
Most of the repression was carried out by the NYPD’s violent and hated Strategic Response Group (SRG), which was deployed to quell the protests and to clear a path for ICE vehicles to whisk Belgal away from the hospital. Mamdani had promised to disband the SRG when he was on the campaign trail but since taking office he has taken no moves to do so nor done anything to rein them in. Although demonstrators fought valiantly, wrestling with police over barricades and chasing down and confronting stray ICE agents, NYPD was eventually able to make enough room for ICE vehicles to speed through the protests, even as they were pelted with rocks and bottles.
Many of these protesters were angry local residents spontaneously rising up, but they were joined by many hundreds more who are part of a broader and growing movement against ICE in New York City and nationwide, including members of the Democratic Socialist of America who are increasingly breaking with the logic of DSA leadership’s support for Democrats. Two thirds of Americans say that ICE has gone too far, and people across the country have been protesting and resisting ICE. For instance, in New Jersey, the demonstrations against the Delaney Hall Detention Center are closely tied to the struggle in New York City. Uniting these struggles, alongside those in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Texas, just to name a few, will have to be an important part of any serious attempt to actually abolish ICE and end the attacks on immigrants.
The protesters were also joined by several local politicians, including New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Darializa Avila Chevelier, who is the DSA-backed Democratic Party nominee for congress for Upper Manhattan and the Bronx. Chevalier, who has not only called to abolish ICE, but is running on a platform of open borders and an end to all deportations, participated directly in the attempts to stop ICE from leaving the hospital with Belgal in custody. Video footage shows an NYPD officer forcefully hitting Chevalier in the chest with his open hand, sending her onto her back several feet away. Chevalier quickly jumped back up and continued to denounce the police. Afterwards, she spoke to the crowd and called for the abolition of ICE and could later be seen following ICE agents who were attempting to interrogate neighbors, explaining to them that they did not have to cooperate with ICE.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani also made an appearance at the protests, and was met with angry jeers from the crowd who chanted “Mamdani is Complicit!” and “No ICE, No KKK, no Fascist USA.” The Mayor condemned the shooting and the abduction of Belgal and called for the abolition of ICE, stating: “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 neighbors than they could ever have claimed to save.”
Despite this anti-ICE rhetoric, the Mayor said nothing about the NYPD’s complicity in that terror and did nothing to stop the repression that was happening just feet away from where he was speaking. The same politician who shouted at state police in the capital building when he was a young assembly member, was now standing side by side and sharing a podium with NYPD Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch in the midst of a practical police riot.
Indeed, it was Tisch who got the first word in the press conference, and who used her time not to denounce ICE or to call for police restraint, but to smear the victim by rattling off Belgal’s criminal record, as if his past crimes were reason enough for a public execution in front of his child on the streets of his own neighborhood. That Mamdani said nothing to contradict Tisch is a testament to the abject failure of his administration to rein in the NYPD or ICE. Mamdani spent enormous political capital meeting with Donald Trump, the architect of the current ICE terror being unleashed on the city, not once, but twice in an effort to appease his administration.
In his speech Mamdani stated that he met with Trump for over two hours to demand Belgal’s release, as if this was evidence that he was doing everything in his power to rectify the situation; Yet here we are. Not only does ICE continue to act with impunity in the city, Trump has also refused to release Belgal. Negotiating with Trump hasn’t made New Yorkers safer, it merely creates cover for the Mayor while his office mediates between the administration and millions of people demanding change for working people in the city.
It is becoming increasingly clear to sectors of those who voted for Mamdani that, despite all the rhetoric, he is not so different from previous Democratic mayors. Mamdani has no intention of actually challenging the powers that be or of building in any way the power and self organization of the working and oppressed people of the city. If we want to defeat ICE we will have to do it ourselves with working class methods of struggle and a broader program for immigrants. Yesterday’s protests, though they failed to stop ICE, are nonetheless an important part of that process, as is today’s 5 p.m. rally in Foley Square. But to win we will have to do more than march.
First, we have to demand more than just the abolition of ICE. Jessica Tisch has got to go. The SRG must be disbanded. The Detention Centers (Including Delaney Hall and Prairieland) must be closed, and we must demand full rights for all immigrants regardless of their legal status or documentation. Immigrants are part of the working class and part of our communities, and we must abolish all of the state-imposed distinctions and racist and sexist ideologies that the state uses to try to divide us from each other. We must organize ourselves, in our workplaces, in our schools, and in the streets, both to fight for our demands, but also to defend our neighbors.
Just as the people of Minneapolis did last winter, we must create and expand independently organized immigrant defense committees in every workplace, school, and neighborhood, and we must call on our labor unions, on immigrants rights organizations, and on all social movement organizations to mobilize their forces and help build a fighting movement for immigrants rights that is grounded in our collective power as the people who make this city and the entire country run.
The post ICE Terrorizes the Bronx with Help from Mamdani’s NYPD appeared first on Left Voice.
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