U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will not pause its activities in New York after ICE agents in the Bronx shot and wounded a man while he was in a car with a five-year-old child, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said Friday.
The shooting Thursday afternoon prompted furious rebukes of ICE from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who said she asked Mullin and President Donald Trump to immediately halt operations in her state.
"We're not putting a pause on enforcement," Mullin said at a press conference Friday morning, which was intended to push back on the growing criticism over the latest ICE shooting.
"I'm sorry, we're not," Mullin said. "In fact, I'm not sorry. Our job is to enforce the nation's laws and go after the worst of the worst, and our men and women do a dang good job at it every single day, and we will not stop doing our job."
A man identified as Oscar Belgal, 28, was shot in the neck after two plainclothes ICE officers approached his vehicle as it backed into a parking spot in the Marble Hill neighborhood, New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a press conference Thursday evening.