Markwayne Mullin runs the Department of Homeland Security. Zohran Mamdani is the mayor of New York City. They’ve been going at it since Thursday, when ICE agents shot a man during an arrest in the Bronx. Today Mullin stepped in front of the cameras at ICE headquarters in Washington and accused Mamdani of inciting hostility. “I’m speaking facts. The mayor speaks with a political tone,” Mullin said. “His words are dangerous, and incite hostility.”
The man is 28-year-old Oscar Belgal. Thursday afternoon in Marble Hill, ICE agents fired at least seven rounds into his car and hit him in the neck, with his 5-year-old son in the back seat. ICE says Belgal refused to get out, sped off, hit two ICE vehicles and drove toward officers. The wound was superficial. Belgal is now in a detention facility outside New York, and the bodycam video hasn’t been released.
Mullin says he spent two hours on the phone with Mamdani, who wanted Belgal released and ICE out of the city. Trump joined the call and offered to hand Belgal to NYPD custody instead. Mamdani wanted him released outright, per Mullin’s account. Mullin also came with numbers: 14,766 detainer requests sent to New York law enforcement, covering migrants accused of 47,750 felony charges. “Silence. Absolute silence,” he said.
Mamdani hasn’t backed down. Thursday night he called ICE “rotten to its core” and demanded the agency be abolished.
