Homeland Security chief lashes out at Mamdani

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin laced into Mayor Mamdani and New York City’s sanctuary city policies Friday, a day after federal ICE agents in the Bronx shot a man in his car.

Mullin’s comments followed sharp criticism from Mamdani over the shooting of 28-year-old Oscar Belgal, in which ICE agents fired seven rounds while his 5-year-old son sat in the backseat of his Honda Civic. He was injured in the neck and taken into custody.

Mamdani late Thursday called the shooting an “outrage” and ICE a “rotten” agency that works to “sow chaos and terror.”

At a Friday press conference, Mullin attacked the mayor.

“His words are dangerous and incite hostility,” Mullin said of Mamdani. He also lambasted New York City’s sanctuary policies, under which local authorities are limited in cooperating with federal immigration law enforcement.

But while the shooting of Belgal has put a spotlight on longstanding concerns over ICE’s heavy-handed tactics, the agency has continued to press its deportation agenda on the streets of New York. Immigration arrests jumped this summer in New York State, with arrests climbing 68% from 922 in May to 1,552 in July, according to the Deportation Data Project.

Mullin framed Belgal, who is originally from the Dominican Republic, as a violent criminal. He repeatedly called the shooting victim a “thug” and a “threat to society,” rattling off prior charges including forcible theft and grand larceny.

He said ICE will not pause enforcement in New York and will not release the man — who he said has already been sent to a facility outside New York City.

The DHS head said that, over “several” conversations with the mayor, the feds offered to release Belgal if the NYPD took him into custody. Mamdani refused and wanted Belgal released, he said.

Mullin also said he spoke multiple times with Gov. Hochul last night, who told him she was open to working with the feds to help detain 100 criminals illegally in New York State — if the federal government gave her notice.

Details about the shooting remain unclear. Mullin said there was footage of the incident from ICE officers’ body-worn cameras, but declined to immediately release it.

“As the investigation moves forward, as I said, we’ll release the information,” Mullin said.

Mullin also falsely claimed Mamdani was “completely silent” after an off-duty NYPD officer was stabbed last week by a pair of undocumented immigrants.

“He’s silent on that, but yet he throws a, as I would say in Oklahoma, a ring-tail fit about this criminal,” the DHS head said, using a Southern idiom.

Mamdani did, in fact, comment more than once on the officer’s stabbing. The two suspects arrested in connection with that incident were from the Dominican Republic and were in the United States illegally, according to DHS.