NYC man shot by ICE seeks immediate release, urgent medical care

Oscar Belgal says he hasn't received any information about whether he'll get the surgery he needs to remove the bullet ICE agents put in his neck.BROOKLYN (CN) — A week after ICE agents stormed his car and shot Oscar Belgal while his son screamed in the back seat, Belgal, who remains detained with a bullet lodged in his neck, is in urgent need of medical care, he said in a Wednesday filing asking to be released immediately.The Oct. 8 shooting in upper Manhattan’s Marble Hill neighborhood, geographically part of The Bronx, left the 28-year-old father of two without any sensation on the left side of his face and with impaired hearing in his left ear, he says in the filing. While Belgal was bleeding and “fading in and out of consciousness,” ICE officers pinned him to the ground and handcuffed him.Belgal only received medical care because NYPD officers who arrived at the scene took him into an ambulance — doing so after ICE officers who were informed an ambulance had arrived “did not act.”As soon as Belgal awoke at New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital, ICE officers handcuffed him to his hospital bed, he says in the filing. Doctors told Belgal he would need surgery to remove the bullet from his neck and told him to return the week of Oct. 12, and ICE then transported Belgal first to a facility in New Jersey, then to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.However, Belgal says he hasn’t received any information about whether he will receive the surgery. The Bureau of Prisons did not immediately return a request for comment. Neither did the Department of Homeland Security.Shortly after the petition was filed in the Eastern District of New York, U.S. District Judge Hector Gonzalez ordered the government to show cause why the petition should not be granted by Monday morning and to clarify the federal statute under which he’s been detained.“Alternatively, the government may waive its rights to a response and submit a letter or otherwise consent to Petitioner’s release without prejudice to its rights on appeal,” wrote Gonzalez, a Joe Biden appointee.The judge cited precedent in another immigration case before him, in which he granted release to an Ecuadorian national who was arrested without a warrant after ICE agents pulled him over while in pursuit of someone else.Belgal, meanwhile, has been given only ibuprofen for his pain, he says, and he has not been able to contact his family while detained in a segregated unit. The entire left side of his face is numb, and he “struggles to hear anything out of his left ear, describing what he does hear as sounding as if it were far off in the distance,” he says.“And separated from the general population, wounded and deprived of contact with people, he replays the traumatic events of Oct. 8 over and over in his memory, with his son’s hysterical cries ringing endlessly in his head,” Belgal says. “His son, meanwhile, did not speak for several days after seeing his father shot, and suffers nightmares every night.”According to Belgal, his son began screaming after the shooting that his father had been killed. Before they began shooting, ICE officers in civilian clothing smashed his driver-side window. They fired at least seven shots into the car.Perry McAninch and Elyssa Williams of the Legal Aid Society represent Belgal. The attorneys are seeking his immediate release, saying his arrest and detention violate federal law and the U.S. Constitution.The attorneys also point to a history of dangerous conditions and medical neglect at MDC Brooklyn, where ICE detainees are held under an agreement between the federal Bureau of Prisons and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.According to Belgal, he invoked his right to refuse to sign forms advising him of his detention and asked an immigration judge to review his custody determination. The custody determination form, created by DHS and filed in Belgal’s removal proceedings, was signed by DHS agent Brenden Cuni, a man who has been identified in videos of the shooting.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads