Democratic congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier believes that the New York police departments’ conduct towards protesters after an ICE agent shot and wounded a man in the district she is running to represent violated “the spirit, if not the letter” of the city’s sanctuary laws. These rules ban local police from helping federal immigration authorities in civil immigration enforcement operations. Protests broke out in Manhattan’s Marble Hill neighborhood after a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shot Oscar Belgal, a 28-year-old Dominican man, while he was sitting in his car with a five-year-old in the backseat.
The child was physically unharmed, and Belgal was taken to the hospital. He was reported as being in stable condition, before ICE reportedly took him into custody again. The Department of Homeland Security has said Belgal was undocumented.
During Thursday night’s demonstration, which drew a few hundred New Yorkers, including Avila Chevalier, the NYPD set up barricades and clashed with protesters who were demanding ICE leave their neighborhood. Police had also helped carry Belgal to an unmarked car, where they laid him in the backseat while he was still handcuffed. Jessica Tisch, the New York City police commissioner, said during a Thursday press conference that the NYPD was not involved in the federal immigration operation prior to the shooting.
Tisch said officers arrived for the purpose of preserving evidence. She also referred to Belgal’s previous criminal record during the event. Avila Chevalier said in a phone interview on Friday that the police commissioner’s mention of Belgal’s prior arrests unfairly villainized him and “showed that Tisch was more interested in peddling the narrative of the Trump administration than in upholding sanctuary policies”.
The NYPD said in a statement that they always provide such information, and that many news outlets had asked about Belgal’s criminal history. Avila Chevalier also said the police’s “inaction” in protecting protesters was a failure to uphold the spirit of the city’s sanctuary laws. She wrote on X earlier on Friday: “The NYPD spent more time protecting a militia that just shot someone than protecting New Yorkers.” In the interview, Avila Chevalier appeared less concerned with the minutia of the city’s sanctuary law and more interested in getting rid of ICE entirely.
But he is facing pressure from progressives over reforming the NYPD in the wake of anti-ICE protests. Many immigration advocates, including Avila Chevalier, are calling for Tisch to step down and for the disbanding of the strategic response group (SRG), a rapid response unit within the NYPD that has been criticized for cracking down harshly on protests. Mamdani has repeatedly promised to disband the SRG, although that has not yet happened.
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