Share This Article
The mayor urged private parking garage owners to stop allowing federal immigration agents to use their properties as staging areas, following a shooting in Marble Hill and recent reports of federal agents operating out of a parking lot in Queens.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is urging private parking garage owners to stop allowing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to use their properties as staging areas for immigration operations.
In a letter released Friday, Mamdani and more than 100 elected officials called on garage and parking lot owners to stop renting, lending or otherwise making their properties available to ICE. They also urged owners to notify the federal agency that it is not authorized to use their facilities.
“Do not rent your property to ICE. Do not lend it to them. Tell them they are not welcome,” Mamdani said in a statement.
This announcement follows the shooting of 28-year-old Oscar Belgal by an ICE agent in Marble Hill earlier this month, where federal agents had reportedly been staging operations at a private parking lot nearby. Belgal’s 5-year-old son was in the car at the time of the shooting, according to the mayor’s office.
In a statement to City Limits, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, dismissed the mayor’s urgings to property owners. Donald Trump’s administration, which has dramatically ramped up immigration enforcement since the president took office for a second term, frames those efforts as a public safety measure, though a majority of the people detained by ICE in New York had no prior criminal conviction.
“No terminated parking will stop ICE from deporting criminal illegal aliens to make New York safe again. We need New York to cooperate with our officers and stop releasing criminals from their jails into New York’s neighborhoods,” said a spokesperson.
As City Limits previously reported, community members in Jackson Heights said they spotted ICE agents in a parking lot adjacent to P.S. 280 on Oct. 3. The school building and the lot are owned by Blessed Sacrament Church, while New York City Public Schools leases the building for weekday school hours.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, two people from Ecuador were arrested that day. The agency said officers briefly pulled into an empty, publicly accessible parking lot to assess an officer’s injury after an arrest operation. Community members expressed concern about the agents’ presence near a school and a space where children often play.
Following the Marble Hill shooting, Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, called for stronger measures to prevent the NYPD from facilitating federal immigration enforcement.
Such interactions undermine trust in local law enforcement, advocates say, and make immigrants hesitant to report crimes or otherwise engage with the police.
“Last week’s shooting of Oscar Belgal is a devastating reminder that ICE’s presence in our neighborhoods puts lives at risk, spreads fear, and undermines the safety of every New Yorker,” Awawdeh said.
Hands Off NYC, a group that has organized protests calling on parking garage owners to end their cooperation with ICE, also described Mamdani’s letter as a step forward. The group said its campaign had included months of protests outside parking facilities across the city.
“For the past six months, community members have shown up outside the parking garages to send a clear message to the Trump Regime and his ICE thugs: there is no place in this city for you,” said Hae-Lin Choi, co-director of the organization.
To reach the reporter behind this story, contact [email protected]. To reach the editor, contact [email protected]
Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.