An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer-involved shooting in New York last week sent Democratic politicians scrambling to the nearest camera to issue thunderous denunciations. Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who used the occasion of Columbus Day to promote a fellow communist, referred to the supposed victim in the incident as a “New Yorker.”
In fact, he was an illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic with a significant criminal history beyond his unlawful presence in the Big Apple. He was shot as he rammed officials with his car while trying to flee authorities — which he’d already successfully done on a previous occasion. Here are a few details on this new leftist cause celebre (emphasis added):
“The Dominican Republic native shot by ICE agents in The Bronx was a migrant with an alarming rap sheet — who apparently benefited from New York’s lax bail and sanctuary laws, allowing him to remain on the streets, according to sources and court records. Oscar Belgal, 28, is believed to have entered the US illegally around 2022, robbed someone at gunpoint in Fordham Heights a year later, allegedly sold dangerous drugs within months of his conviction in 2025 and was even allegedly connected to a violent street gang.”
“By December 2023, he’d been arrested for the armed robbery a month prior, according to authorities and court records. Belgal was driving with two people in the backseat along Morris Avenue, when he turned and pointed a gun at them while demanding ‘give me your jewelry or I will shoot you,’ according to the criminal complaint. The victims handed over jewelry and about $500 cash, and Belgal was later caught — but then released without bail pending trial, records showed … That brush with the law apparently did little to reform Belgal — just months after his conviction he was arrested again in August 2025, this time for allegedly selling dangerous drugs like fentanyl, cocaine and heroin in a case that remains open.
“Those cases were not bail-eligible — so Belgal was sprung” after being arrested. This is an unreformed criminal illegal immigrant, emboldened by New York’s insane “sanctuary” policies that have repeatedly shielded him from deportation and accountability. It must be noted, of course, that if this man had simply been handed over to federal authorities in the safe and controlled setting of a jail, higher-risk street confrontations such as the one that led to last week’s shooting would have been rendered completely unnecessary. Sanctuary policies guarantee chaotic and dangerous incidents like this. Pro-criminal “no-bail” policies put repeat offenders back out on the streets to reoffend. Yet cynical politicians insist on scapegoating ICE for the results of their own reckless policies. Additional information continues to emerge about this poor, downtrodden “victim” of ICE:
“The illegal migrant shot by federal ICE agents in a chaotic Bronx showdown terrorized his former neighbors with a machete — and a terrified resident said Saturday he’s relieved the accused gangbanger has finally been taken off the streets. Dominican Republic-native Oscar Belgal, 28, who authorities said has ties to the bloodthirsty Trinitarios street gang, wreaked havoc at the Washington Heights apartment building where he lived until about a year ago, according to a one-time neighbor. ‘He’s a menace to society,’ the shaken resident said of Belgal — whom Mayor Mamdani outrageously called a ‘New Yorker’ whose release he tried to negotiate as he railed against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
“The former neighbor, a man from the Dominican Republic who declined to give his name for safety concerns, recalled one of Belgal’s most unhinged outbursts while living there — in which he pulled a machete on another resident’s nephew … He claimed Belgal — who the feds believe slipped into the US with a migrant caravan in 2022 without encountering border patrol — whipped out the massive blade during a fight with the man outside the building last year. No one was seriously injured in the squabble, he added.”
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This is their new hero. Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY), in full gaslighting mode, claimed during an interview about this case that her state “is not a sanctuary for criminals, but we are a place where people want to build a life, to live safely, obey our laws, and to live the American Dream.”
In fact, New York is, explicitly, a sanctuary for criminals, where illegal immigrants who repeatedly disobey laws are habitually released and protected from immigration enforcement actions. This is New York’s policy. I’ll leave you with a brilliant, simple ad cut by the Republican running against Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James, whom she totally outclassed in a debate last week. Three simple words underscore the priority of basic law and order, folded into a smart and intuitive “affordability” message:
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
