WASHINGTON — President Trump is expected to criticize Gov. Kathy Hochul’s sanctuary policies when he campaigns Friday in Syracuse with Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman. The rally follows two violent incidents that have intensified debate over New York’s immigration enforcement policies.
Last week, two Dominican nationals with criminal records allegedly stabbed an off-duty New York Police Department detective in the Bronx during an attempted robbery.
The suspects, 25-year-old D’Angelo Caraballo and 24-year-old Sneider Mejia Bautista, were arrested early Wednesday after allegedly hiding in a basement in Lynn, Massachusetts.
Caraballo had previously been jailed on charges including reckless driving, unlawfully fleeing from an officer and criminal possession of a loaded firearm.
Local police released him after his December 2024 arrest.
Bautista, meanwhile, was arrested in October of last year on charges including grand larceny, criminal possession of a weapon and stealing property. He was later released after the NYPD declined to honor an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer.
A separate confrontation unfolded Thursday afternoon when ICE officers shot and wounded Oscar Belgal, a 28-year-old suspected migrant gang member, in the Bronx’s Marble Hill neighborhood. A 5-year-old boy believed to be Belgal’s son was in the back of his SUV at the time.
The Department of Homeland Security said Belgal is suspected of having ties to the notorious Trinitarios gang. The agency also said he has “a prior criminal conviction for grand larceny, and multiple prior arrests for assault, robbery, possession of drugs, and weapons possession.”
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“This criminal illegal alien was arrested by the NYPD on December 7, 2023, but was released into the community a few days later by reckless Democrat sanctuary policies that put American lives at risk.”
In August, Hochul signed the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act, which places limits on certain forms of statewide cooperation with ICE in civil immigration matters.
“New Yorkers are outraged tonight. Immigrant communities are terrified. And we are demanding answers,” Hochul said in a statement after the Belgal shooting.
“Tonight, I spoke with President Trump and DHS Secretary Mullin about the shooting in Marble Hill,” the governor added on X. “I expressed outrage on behalf of New Yorkers and urged them to halt ICE enforcement operations in New York. 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.”
Blakeman, Hochul’s Republican challenger and an underdog in most polls, said earlier this week that he would sign an executive order requiring local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with ICE if he is elected Nov. 3.
“The insanity is over, we’re putting New Yorkers first,” the Nassau County executive said. He added that “one of the toughest days” of his tenure “was the day that I had to tell our police and our sheriffs that they could no longer cooperate with ICE because of Kathy Hochul.”
Syracuse and neighboring Onondaga County form a Democratic-leaning pocket in an otherwise heavily Republican region of central New York. Beyond supporting Blakeman, Trump is expected to use Friday’s rally to bolster Republican House candidate Kailee Buller, a former USDA official challenging first-term Democratic incumbent John Mannion.
Before the rally, the Trump administration has drawn attention to several undocumented immigrants arrested in Syracuse in connection with alleged violent or disturbing crimes.
The cases include Hsa Mu Na, who is accused of sexually exploiting a minor; Norberto Machado-Rodriguez, who faced allegations of sexual assault; Haikham Phimasone, who is accused of assault; and Said Ibrahim, who is accused of cruelty toward a child.
