Mamdani, Schumer and Jeffries Ask NYC Lot Owners to Keep ICE Out After Marble Hill Shooting
Their letter asks private garages not to let immigration officers stage operations there. DHS says officers fired only after the man drove at them.
By Watchman Report staff ·
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and dozens of state and local lawmakers sent a letter Friday asking owners of private parking lots and garages not to let federal immigration officers use their properties as staging areas, the Associated Press reported. "We ask that you do not rent, lend, or otherwise make your property available to ICE as a staging area for its enforcement operations," the letter reads. Axios called it a rare collaboration between Mamdani and Jeffries.
The letter came after immigration officers shot Oscar Belgal, a 28-year-old Dominican national, during an arrest on Oct. 8 in the Marble Hill neighborhood while he was riding in a car with his young son. According to the letter, officers had used a nearby private lot as a staging area before the shooting. Federal officials say the officers believed their lives were in danger and opened fire only after Belgal smashed his car into two government vehicles and accelerated toward them.
City rules already bar outside agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security from staging on city property without a judicial warrant or a limited legal exception, but those rules do not cover private lots. A DHS spokesperson responded, "Mayor Mamdani should be grateful to our brave law enforcement officers for cleaning up the streets of NYC since he won't," and said ICE would keep deporting "criminal illegal aliens."
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