ICE agent shoots man in car with five-year-old child in New York: Mayor

Mayor Zohran Mamdani says agents fired at a car with a child inside; DHS says the man was an arrest target.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent has shot a man in the Marble Hill neighbourhood of New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said, calling the incident an “unconscionable and incredibly serious situation”.

In a statement he published on X, Mamdani said early reports on Thursday indicated agents surrounded the man and a five-year-old child in his car before firing multiple rounds.

The child was believed to be physically unharmed, he added.

Mamdani said he had called President Donald Trump and would demand that he end all ICE enforcement actions in the city. “I will not stand by while ICE agents terrorize our communities,” he said.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said ICE officers were conducting a “targeted enforcement operation” in the Bronx at about ۴pm to arrest a man it described as a Dominican national with a criminal conviction.

It said an officer “discharged his weapon” and the man was injured.

DHS said the incident remains under investigation.

According to a statement by the New York Police Department, the man remains conscious and is receiving medical treatment at a nearby hospital.

ICE under scrutiny

The shooting comes after months of mounting criticism of the agency.

In January, federal immigration agents shot dead two US citizens in Minneapolis: Renee Nicole Good, a ۳۷-year-old mother of three, killed by an ICE agent on January ۷, and Alex Pretti, a ۳۷-year-old intensive care nurse, shot by a US border agent.

After Good’s killing, Trump officials labelled her a “domestic terrorist” even as video of the shooting cast doubt on claims she had tried to run over an agent.

The federal government removed local authorities from the investigation, rejected calls for a civil rights probe, and sent hundreds more agents to Minnesota, bringing the total to ۳,۰۰۰, as protests spread to hundreds of US cities.

Trump blamed the shift in American opinion about the immigration agency on unfair media coverage, urging DHS and ICE to publicise the “violent criminals” they arrest.

ICE has been tasked with a target of one million deportations a year.

The agency doubled in size to more than ۲۲,۰۰۰ agents by January and is now the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency, with about $۷۵bn allocated to it over four years under a tax bill Trump signed last year.