Thousands of protesters filled New York City streets Friday, demanding the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and calling for the dismissal of NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, one day after an ICE agent shot a man during an operation in the Bronx.
An estimated 5,000 demonstrators marched through Lower Manhattan, chanting “Abolish ICE,” “ICE out of New York” and “Stop the deportations” in response to Thursday’s shooting of Oscar Belgal, 28, in the Bronx.
Activist Chelsea Manning, city Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and congressional hopefuls Brad Lander and Micah Lasher were among those who joined the protest.
One protester, Ilyana, who declined to provide her last name, told The Post she had “been protesting all my life,” but said the latest demonstration was “some next level s–t.”
“They are ripping people from their families, shooting people in front of their children, and no one is doing anything about it,” she said angrily.
Belgal, a native of the Dominican Republic, was shot inside his vehicle in Marble Hill as ICE agents attempted to arrest him over alleged connections to the Trinitarios, a violent gang with a long history in New York City.
Here’s the latest on the Bronx ICE shooting:
Tisch said seven shots were fired by at least one ICE agent, while emphasizing that “the NYPD had no involvement in the federal operation prior to the shooting.”
A 5-year-old child believed to be Belgal’s son was in the vehicle when the shots were fired but was not injured, according to Tisch.
As the hourslong demonstration continued, protesters repeatedly shouted, “Fire Tisch.”
“Yesterday, a New Yorker was shot in the head in front of his five-year-old child,” Murad Awawdeh, CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, told the increasingly large crowd gathered at Foley Square.
Kyle Ishmael, 41, chair of the Manhattan Democratic Party, said he was participating because New York is “a country and a nation, a city and a state of immigrants.”
“That’s what we do as New Yorkers until we abolish ICE,” Ishmael said. “No one deserves to be shot, especially when they’re in their car with their five-year-old child.”
Mayor Zohran Mamdani condemned what he described as the shooting of “a New Yorker by ICE agents in Marble Hill” during a late-night news conference Thursday.
Markwayne Mullin, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, rejected the mayor’s characterization of Belgal as a “New Yorker.”
“You’re going to call that a New Yorker?! I think that’s a far cry,” Mullin said Thursday.
Mullin said Belgal “was known to be affiliated with” the Trinitarios, a gang that began in the early 1990s as a protective organization for Dominican inmates at Rikers Island before expanding into a multinational criminal network with a presence in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan.
The NYPD told The Post that Belgal had been arrested twice in New York City. The first arrest, in 2023, involved a robbery case in which he pleaded guilty to fourth-degree grand larceny and received five years of probation. His second arrest, for allegedly selling a controlled substance in 2025, remains pending.
Federal officials said Belgal had an immigration detainer and was out on probation.
