On Friday evening, a crowd numbering in the hundreds assembled at Foley Square — positioned directly across from 26 Federal Plaza — alongside immigration advocates and elected officials, calling for federal immigration enforcement agents to withdraw from New York City. The gathering followed a Thursday afternoon incident in Marble Hill in which agents shot and wounded a man as his son looked on.

According to the NYPD, at least one ICE agent discharged seven rounds at Oscar Bergal, 28, during the Thursday afternoon encounter in the Marble Hill neighbourhood, with at least one round striking him in the neck beneath the ear. Authorities confirmed that a child believed to be Bergal's son, around five years old, had been inside the vehicle throughout the incident, was not injured, and has since been placed in the care of a relative.

According to ICE, Bergal declined to exit his vehicle when ordered to do so, and the agency further alleged that he used the vehicle as a threat against its agents. Those allegations drew pushback from a number of critics who disputed their validity.

On Friday, members of the New York Immigration Coalition, Make the Road New York, the New York Civil Liberties Union, the New York Working Families Party, and several other immigration-focused organisations gathered at a rally organised by Hands Off NYC outside ICE's New York City field office, where participants called for the agency to end its operations in the city.

Murad Awawdeh, who leads the New York Immigration Coalition, described ICE's actions at the Friday rally as an assault on New Yorkers, pointing to the previous day's incident in which a man was shot in the head while his five-year-old child was present. Awawdeh expressed hope that the child would receive support and that the family might eventually be reunited.

The crowd, which included elected officials — among them Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, City Comptroller Mark Levine, and Queens Assembly Member Catalina Cruz — voiced demands for an independent inquiry into the shooting, urging New York Attorney General Letitia James to take up the investigation. One speaker expressed a wish that the officers responsible for firing the rounds would be haunted by the memory of the wounded child.

From Foley Square, the procession made its way to 201 Varick Street — a building that holds both U.S. Customs and Immigration Services offices and immigration courts — where demonstrators pressed for the release of bodycam footage tied to Thursday's shooting.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin indicated Friday morning that bodycam footage had been captured by federal agents throughout the incident, with details to be made available as investigators worked through the case. He did not confirm during that statement that the footage would be released.

Attendees at Friday's rally put forward a cluster of demands: that Bergal be freed from ICE custody, that the person responsible for the shooting face criminal prosecution, and that Target and other retailers refuse to allow ICE to stage in their car parks before enforcement operations. Speakers at the event alleged that the Marble Hill Target lot had previously served as a staging area for ICE operations directed at the Bronx.

In an official statement, a Target representative indicated the company holds no cooperative arrangements with ICE or any other immigration enforcement body. Awawdeh and other speakers at the gathering called for ICE to be removed from New York and for the agency to be dismantled entirely.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who on Thursday evening repeated his position that the agency should be disbanded, issued a statement noting that a five-year-old child had been left in a state of distress and fear. Mamdani stated that residents across the community were questioning their personal safety — on public streets, in schools, and at workplaces — and that his office would not treat immigration enforcement conduct of that nature as an accepted norm.

Critics and advocacy groups raised questions about whether the agency's enforcement practices hinder rather than support community-level safety outcomes. The claim that such measures reduce public safety remains contested, and no independent verification of that assertion has been established.

Additional voices at Friday's gathering urged that the NYPD provide a clearer account of its role when federal immigration enforcement operations take place, while one speaker called for the agency's elimination entirely.

Natalia Aristizabal, co-executive director of Make the Road NY, said the organisation was working to ensure that NYPD officers prioritised the protection of community members over any assistance rendered to federal immigration enforcement. Devashish Basnet, an immigration strategist with the New York Civil Liberties Union, called for an independent inquiry into the department's involvement in ICE operations and alleged that officers had moved against demonstrators in Marble Hill the previous Thursday evening. In a statement, Basnet said a city cannot credibly hold sanctuary status when its police department is seen facilitating federal immigration agents and taking action against those who protest such activity.

ICE had not provided comment by the time of publication. On Friday afternoon, the Department of Homeland Security posted on social media that immigration advocates had put forward what it characterised as "numerous lies" about the shooting.

According to Mullin's account given that Friday morning, Bergal disregarded instructions to leave his vehicle, made contact with two ICE vehicles, and then drove toward the officers, at which point an agent discharged a weapon. Mullin stated that the agents were unaware a five-year-old child was present inside the vehicle and attributed responsibility for the child's exposure to risk to Bergal's decision not to comply with orders to exit.

A DHS official identified as Marcos Charles told reporters that ICE agents had moved to surround Bergal as part of a coordinated operation aimed at taking him into custody. Charles stated that agents directed Bergal to leave the vehicle through lawful commands and put forward the assertion that Bergal had turned his car into a weapon.

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch noted that video footage appeared to capture a plainclothes federal officer advancing on Bergal's side window with a drawn firearm as Bergal was manoeuvring backward into a parking space. Footage showed a second officer stepping toward the headlight on the driver's side of the vehicle. Tisch reported that the vehicle rolled forward and disappeared from the camera's field of view, and that no footage existed of the shooting or the events that immediately followed it.

Ballistic evidence led investigators to conclude that Bergal was struck in the neck, just below the ear, by gunfire from at least one ICE agent who discharged seven rounds toward his vehicle.

At a Thursday evening press conference, Mamdani raised questions about ICE's conduct in the incident, noting that Bergal had no clear way to identify agents who wore masks and carried no visible insignia. According to the account given, agents conducting the operation wore construction-style vests and covered their faces with masks, a combination that left Bergal unable to determine whether the individuals approaching were law enforcement officers.

Mamdani raised further questions Thursday evening about the conduct of federal officers, pointing to the presence of a five-year-old child in the vehicle when multiple rounds were discharged into it, and stating that no justification could account for that level of force under those circumstances.

On Thursday evening, Gov. Kathy Hochul disclosed that she had contacted both President Trump and Mullin, pressing each of them to suspend ICE enforcement activities within New York state. Hochul conveyed her displeasure to federal authorities on behalf of New York residents, pressing them to suspend ICE enforcement activity in the state and to make any body camera recordings from the shooting available for public review.

The Department of Homeland Security separately contended that Bergal had been under a Homeland Security Investigations inquiry and maintained that he held gang affiliations along with direct or indirect awareness of a prior shooting involving a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer. No independent corroboration of those claims has been established.

According to Tisch, Bergal had faced two previous arrests in New York City. One — a robbery case brought in 2023 — concluded with a guilty plea to fourth-degree grand larceny and a probationary term of five years. A drug-related charge involving the sale of a controlled substance, brought forward in 2025, remains pending and awaiting a judicial outcome.

A Thursday-night statement from DHS linked the episode partly to New York City's sanctuary city framework, noting that Bergal had walked free within days of his 2023 arrest. The statement did not account for how those policies bore on the circumstances of his release. The Department of Homeland Security also put forward an assertion that Bergal had ties to the Trinitarios gang; no independent verification of that assertion has been carried out.

Bergal was transferred from NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital to a federal detention facility whose location was not disclosed, after efforts by Mamdani to obtain his release proved unsuccessful. Mamdani stated that over the preceding two hours he had been in phone contact with President Trump and Secretary Mullin in an attempt to negotiate the release of the man ICE agents had shot, and that those talks did not produce an agreement. ICE agents had placed Bergal into an unmarked vehicle and transported him from the scene shortly before that statement was made.