Follow-Up: Mayor Mamdani and More Than 100 Elected Officials Write to 1,000-Plus NYC Parking Lot Owners, Urging Them Not to Let ICE Stage Operations There

NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani, joined by Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and more than 100 other federal, state and city elected officials, wrote on October 16 to the owners and operators of more than 1,000 private parking lots and garages across New York City's five boroughs, urging them not to rent, lend or otherwise make their properties available to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as staging areas for enforcement operations, and to tell ICE directly that it is not authorized to use their lots and garages, according to the Associated Press. Announcing the letter, Mamdani said owners should not rent their property to ICE and should not lend it to the agency. Other signers include Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, City Council Speaker Julie Menin, Comptroller Mark Levine and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.

The letter told owners that the city needs their help at a critical juncture. It cited several instances of ICE staging from private property: two bank parking lots on Northern Boulevard in Queens and a garage on Morton Street in Manhattan. The Morton Street operator removed ICE vehicles after neighbors objected, and the officials held that decision up as a model for other owners. The letter said each such use, whether under a formal or informal arrangement or no arrangement at all, gives ICE a launching point for its operations. The appeal is voluntary: it does not change any law and sets no penalty for owners who decline. Existing city rules already restrict outside agencies from staging on city-owned property, which ICE may not use as a base of operations without a judicial warrant or limited exceptions, but those rules do not cover private lots and garages — the gap the letter addresses.

The letter stems directly from the October 8 shooting in Marble Hill. The mayor's office said ICE agents involved in that day's operation had reportedly used a privately owned parking lot near the scene to prepare. On October 8, Oscar Belgal, 28, encountered ICE agents while looking for a parking space after picking up his 5-year-old son from school; an agent shot him in the neck, and his son, who was in the back seat, was not injured. A bullet remains lodged in Belgal's neck. He is held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, his next immigration court hearing is set for October 29, and GSM has been following the case in its belgal series.

The two sides give different accounts of the October 8 shooting. Belgal's side: in a court filing submitted October 14, his lawyers said an unidentified masked man with a gun rushed Belgal's car, smashed the window and then fired repeatedly into the vehicle while Belgal's 5-year-old son sat in the back seat; the filing also said agents did not show a warrant when making the arrest. The federal side: Department of Homeland Security officials have said agents opened fire only after Belgal drove into two government vehicles and accelerated toward other agents, and that the agents believed their lives were in danger; Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said at a news conference last week that the agents did not know a child was in the car when they fired. Surveillance video released earlier by the New York Police Department captured part of the encounter but did not settle the sequence of the shooting, and the competing accounts remain before the courts. As of the evening of October 16, reports by the Associated Press and other outlets carried no public response from ICE or the Department of Homeland Security to the letter itself. (GSM, based on Associated Press reporting of October 16 and the publicly released text of the letter; the two accounts of the shooting are drawn, respectively, from the filing by Belgal's lawyers and prior public statements by the Department of Homeland Security)

Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)

Photo: 图：纽约市长马姆达尼在市政讲台前发言（2026年2月跨宗教早餐会资料图，当时他正宣布进一步限制市政府与ICE的合作）。图片来源：纽约市长办公室，经 Wikimedia Commons 发布，CC BY 4.0。Photo: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaking at a city podium (file photo from the February 2026 interfaith breakfast, where he announced further restrictions on city cooperation with ICE). Source: NYC Mayor's Office, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.

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