(AFP) – US Homeland Security chief Markwayne Mullin lashed out at New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Friday over his demand that federal immigration agents leave the city following the shooting of a Dominican man. “His words are dangerous and incite hostility,” Mullin said at a press conference during which he defended the conduct of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
Mullin said Oscar Bergal, 28, the man shot and wounded in the Bronx by ICE agents on Thursday, had an extensive criminal history and was trying to evade arrest. “He came to this country legally a few years ago, and ever since he’s come in, he’s committed crime and crime after crime,” the Homeland Security secretary said. Bergal suffered a superficial wound to the neck and was hospitalized. A five-year-old child who was in his car at the time was physically unharmed.
Mullin said ICE officers did not know there was a child in the car when they opened fire. Mamdani, a Democrat, condemned the shooting and said he would ask President Donald Trump to halt ICE enforcement actions in New York. “Abolish ICE,” the mayor said on X.
“Mayor, if you abolish ICE, who’s going to take criminals off the streets of your own town?” Mullin responded. “Who’s going to take the murderers and the thieves and the gangbangers?” Marcos Charles, a senior ICE official, also addressed the press conference and said Bergal had “refused lawful orders to exit his vehicle.”
“He then accelerated his vehicle, smashing into two of our government ICE vehicles, and then weaponized his vehicle and proceeded to accelerate, going towards other officers,” Charles said. “Our officers, using their training, and believing that their life and the lives of their partners and general public were in danger, used their training and fired weapons,” he said.
Several hundred protesters gathered peacefully at the scene of the shooting Thursday evening to express opposition to Trump’s immigration crackdown. Trump, a Republican, heavily criticized Mamdani before he took office in January, but the two men have since struck a surprisingly warm relationship. ICE has been involved in several high-profile shootings this year, including the killing of two US citizens in Minneapolis, which sparked angry protests. New York, a Democratic stronghold, is one of several US cities that bars its police force from assisting with federal immigration enforcement.
© 2024 AFP
