Federal Judge Blocks Deportation After ICE Shoots Dominican Man in Marble Hill — Here's What Comes Next

A federal judge in New York temporarily barred the government from deporting a 28-year-old Dominican national who was shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent while driving through Marble Hill — a neighborhood administratively part of Manhattan but geographically connected to the Bronx — with his young son in the back seat. The ruling, issued Friday, came as street protests erupted across the city and New York officials from the mayor's office to Capitol Hill demanded full accountability.

Seven Shots, One Child, Ninety Seconds to the ER

Oscar Bergal was behind the wheel of his gray Honda CR-V with his five-year-old son in the back seat when ICE agents moved to arrest him around 4 p.m. on October 8 near West 225th Street and Marble Hill Avenue. According to CBS New York, at least one agent discharged his firearm seven times, striking Bergal in the neck just below his left ear. The child was uninjured and was later released to a family member.

NYPD officers — responding to an unrelated nearby call — arrived to find Bergal handcuffed on the ground, surrounded by federal agents in construction-style vests and masks. Officers loaded him into a patrol car and reached the emergency room in under 90 seconds, according to NY1. He was treated at New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital before being transferred to ICE custody that evening.

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who described the scene based on surveillance footage, said Bergal appeared to be pulling into a parking spot when two plainclothes federal officers approached — one with his weapon already drawn. The vehicle moved forward out of camera view, and shots followed. The NYPD was not involved in the operation itself.

ICE's Justification: A Car Used as a Weapon

Federal authorities maintained Friday that the shooting was justified. At a Washington news conference alongside DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin — a former Oklahoma senator who was confirmed as DHS chief in March 2026 — senior ICE official Marcos Charles told reporters that Bergal refused commands to exit his vehicle, accelerated into two government cars, and then steered toward agents on foot. "Our officers, using their training and believing that their life and the life of the partners and the general public were in danger, used their training and fired weapons," Charles said, as reported by Spectrum News NY1.

Mullin added that agents had no knowledge of the child's presence inside the vehicle, and that Bergal had already evaded a prior arrest attempt in September. He also disclosed that ICE officers were wearing body cameras that were activated, though he declined to say when footage would be made public.

DHS characterized Bergal as an undocumented immigrant with an alleged connection to the Trinitarios, a Dominican criminal organization founded in 1993 on Rikers Island, according to NewsNation. The agency also claimed a link between Bergal and a prior attack on a CBP officer — though no independent public evidence has been released confirming that specific connection, and the CBP incident most commonly cited by DHS in this context took place in July 2025, roughly 15 months ago, not two years as some accounts have stated.

A Criminal Record, Open Cases, and Disputed Claims

Commissioner Tisch told reporters Bergal had two prior arrests. A 2023 robbery case ended in a guilty plea to fourth-degree larceny — a misdemeanor in New York, despite DHS's characterization of it as "grand larceny." A second arrest in 2025 on a criminal sale of a controlled substance charge remains pending, per CBS New York. Several other open cases — involving robbery, weapons, and menacing — have produced not guilty pleas across the board.

His legal team at Make the Road New York said he remains in pain and that a bullet is still lodged in his body, raising what advocates described as serious concerns about the level of medical attention he received after his arrest.

A Federal Judge Issues an Emergency Block

On Friday, U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken, an Obama appointee in the Southern District of New York, issued an order barring Bergal's deportation while his habeas corpus petition moves through the courts. The ruling also prohibited ICE from transferring him to any detention facility outside the New York–New Jersey corridor without prior court authorization, according to reporting tracking the legal proceedings.

The emergency petition was filed by immigration advocates at Make the Road New York. Attorney Harold Solis argued that no criminal history changes the basic legal principle at stake — that disputes belong in courtrooms rather than on a neighborhood street with a child in the car. Bergal is currently held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, after a brief stint at a New Jersey facility that appeared to test the geographic limits of the judge's order.

A City Erupts: Officials Demand Answers

Street demonstrations broke out Thursday night, with protesters converging near the hospital where Bergal was being treated and chanting against ICE operations in the city. Five demonstrators were taken into custody by NYPD, CBS New York reported.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani spent two hours on the phone with President Trump and DHS Secretary Mullin on Thursday night in an attempt to secure Bergal's release — those negotiations produced no result. He condemned the operation at the scene, stating that "there is no justification for what we have seen today." Governor Kathy Hochul demanded a full statewide pause in ICE enforcement activity, pointing out that New York's 500-plus law enforcement agencies do not discharge weapons into vehicles without verifying who is inside, and arguing federal agents should be held to that same standard.

Rep. Adriano Espaillat, a New York Democrat who met with the boy and his mother at the hospital, was blocked by ICE agents from entering the room where Bergal was being held, according to CBS New York.

Washington Weighs In; DHS Holds Firm

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for a full and independent investigation into the incident and the immediate release of all body camera footage. She separately called on the Target Corporation to stop allowing its Bronx locations to be used as staging grounds for ICE operations, describing the practice as placing entire communities at risk. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer echoed calls for body camera footage, while House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries described the agents' conduct as "rogue." Republican lawmakers remained largely silent.

DHS Secretary Mullin showed no signs of changing course. "We're not putting a pause on enforcement," he told reporters Friday, adding that he viewed Bergal as "a thug — the absolute worst of the worst." Both the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations are examining the circumstances of the Marble Hill operation. Pro-immigrant groups and New York officials continue to press for transparency on how the arrest was planned — and on whether the presence of a child should have changed how agents approached the situation before firing. NBC News notes there have been at least 30 shootings involving DHS officers during the current administration, a figure CBS News confirmed through its own analysis.

© {{Year}} Latin Times. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.