ICE officers shoot man during arrest in New York City

The man was treated in hospital after the shooting in New York City (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

A US federal immigration officer has shot a Dominican man in the neck as he drove in a car with a five-year-old boy in New York City, officials said.

The US department of homeland security (DHS) said it was seeking to arrest the man in a “targeted enforcement operation”, but protesters and local officials decried it as an example of the dangers of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

The 28-year-old man, whom city police identified as Oscar Belgal, survived and was treated in hospital.

The DHS did not describe exactly what led to the shooting, saying only that “during the incident, an ICE officer discharged his weapon”, and that the man was injured.

City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Mr Belgal was pulling into a parking space when a federal officer in plainclothes approached with gun drawn, followed by another federal officer who also was not in uniform.

Mr Belgal started to pull the car forward, and then at least one of the officers fired seven rounds, hitting the man below his left ear, Ms Tisch said.

The child in the car was unharmed and is now with a relative, according to Ms Tisch, who noted that city police were not involved in the operation but heard the shots and responded.

The DHS said it had been seeking to arrest a “criminal illegal alien” with a grand larceny conviction and a history of other arrests.

However, New York mayor Zohran Mamdani called the shooting an outrage.

“There is no justification for what we have seen today,” Mr Mamdani said.

He said the federal officers who surrounded the vehicle wore construction vests and masks, making it difficult to identify them as immigration officers.

The mayor, a Democrat, said he had spent two hours on Thursday night pressing Republican president Donald Trump and homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin to release the wounded man, and urging them to stop immigration enforcement operations in the city.

He said that federal authorities had removed the man from hospital and taken him away.

State governor Kathy Hochul, also a Democrat, said she had delivered a similar message to Mr Trump and Mr Mullin by phone.

The gunfire erupted around 4pm on Thursday local time (9pm BST) in Marble Hill, a small part of Manhattan that is attached to the Bronx.

Ms Tisch said that an NYPD security camera had recorded some of the events leading up to the gunfire, but not the shooting itself.

Bystander videos and photos posted by on social media showed a man sitting on the ground with his hands behind his back, in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. Another video shows New York City police officers picking up Mr Belgal and carrying him into a police vehicle.

Nearby, a damaged car sat blocking the roadway with small holes in two of its windows. Ms Tisch said the shooting left the car with a bullet entry point on its front windshield and an exit point in one of its rear windows.

At a heated press conference at the shooting scene Thursday night, several local politicians condemned the shooting.

“We are heartbroken and enraged,” said city council member Carmen De La Rosa, a Democrat who emigrated from the Dominican Republic and now represents areas including Marble Hill. Some other elected officials cursed ICE and Mr Trump.

Demonstrators at the scene chanted: “ICE off our streets now!” and then marched to the hospital where the injured man was being treated.

A sizable crowd blocked an intersection at the hospital entry. As police began to set barricades so that ambulances and other vehicles could pass, some protesters pushed at the barriers and hurled water bottles at officers.

More clashes at the barricades followed, and police made some arrests.

The DHS complained that its officers “are forced to make arrests at large in the community in unpredictable and dangerous environments” when “dangerous illegal aliens” get released.

The agency blamed “reckless sanctuary policies” in Democrat-led areas. There is no clear definition of sanctuary jurisdictions, but the term is generally applied to state and local governments that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

Mr Belgal had been arrested on a robbery charge in 2023, later pleaded guilty to grand larceny and was sentenced to probation, Ms Tisch said, adding that he later was arrested on a drug-sale charge that has not yet been resolved. Electronic court records show that Mr Belgal has pleaded not guilty in the drug case.

ICE agents have fired their guns during more than a dozen vehicle stops since last year, killing at least four people and wounding others.

In late September, ICE ordered its officers not to engage in high-speed car chases and to make vehicle stops only if they have completed specific training.