Lawyers for Oscar Belgal, shot by ICE in NYC, file papers demanding his release

NEW YORK — Lawyers for Oscar Belgal, the undocumented Dominican immigrant shot by ICE agents in New York City last week, are asking for his immediate release, calling his arrest illegal and saying that, six days later, he still hasn’t been allowed to undergo surgery despite having a bullet lodged in his neck.

The Legal Aid Society, which now represents the 28-year-old father, filed a habeas corpus petition in Brooklyn Federal Court Wednesday, seeking his “immediate release on reasonable conditions.”

“Anything less fails to adequately address Oscar’s imminent risk of complete and irreversible harm,” reads the motion, filed by Legal Aid immigration lawyer Perry McAninch, noting, “He has experienced a loss of sensation in half of his face, as well as hearing loss in his left ear.”

Belgal’s lawyers said the undocumented immigrant had picked his boy up from school and taken him to McDonald’s before ICE agents swarmed his car.

“After ICE shot him, Oscar exited his vehicle and pleaded for medical assistance, fearing that he was dying,” the Legal Aid motion reads. “And believing the same, his son began yelling that the masked individuals had killed his dad.”

Belgal, who was initially detained in New Jersey after his shooting, was moved to the notorious MDC Brooklyn federal jail on Friday.

“Mr. Belgal’s detention was unlawful from its inception. ICE officers shot him in the neck in front of his five-year-old son, failed to provide him with immediate medical assistance, and now continue to hold him in a facility notorious for medical neglect,” McAninch and fellow Legal Aid attorney Elyssa Williams said in a joint statement Wednesday. “With a bullet still lodged in his neck and his serious medical needs unmet, every additional day in custody puts him at further risk. The Court must intervene and order his immediate release.”

The Daily News has covered several instances of medical mistreatment at the jail, including two cases where staff botched inmates’ cancer treatment. In one case, court documents detail how jail staff ignored an inmate’s CT scan result for months, allowing a tumor in his lung to triple in size. He died last November.

Belgal’s case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Hector Gonzalez, a Biden appointee who has ruled against ICE in the past.

Judge Gonzalez gave the Department of Homeland Security until Monday at 10 a.m. to file paperwork explaining why Belgal shouldn’t be released. He also ordered that Belgal remain in New York until DHS files their paperwork.

An earlier habeas corpus case involving Belgal brought in Manhattan Federal Court in the wake of the shooting is expected to be dismissed after his lawyers with Make the Road New York acknowledged Tuesday that it should have been presented to a different court, as he wasn’t in the Southern District of New York when they filed it. Manhattan Federal Judge John Cronan, a Trump appointee, on Wednesday asked that Belgal’s legal team on the jurisdiction issue and the Justice Department jointly file paperwork agreeing to the case’s dismissal without prejudice, meaning it could be refiled elsewhere.

An ICE agent fired seven bullets into a silver Honda Civic driven by Belgal, on Marble Hill Ave. near W. 225th St. Thursday afternoon, hitting him in the neck. His 5-year-old son was in the back seat.

While video of the actual shooting has not been released, agents were in plainclothes, some disguised as construction workers, when they ran up to Belgal’s car, their weapons raised at the undocumented immigrant.

“Respondents have failed to meet the most elemental requirements for their arrest and detention authority, not even having charged Oscar as removable before arresting him,” McAnnich wrote.

Belgal’s contend that the ICE agents never identified themselves, even after shooting him, and stood by doing nothing as he bled on the ground. Responding NYPD officers took him to New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital.

The court filing doesn’t identify who shot Belgal, though it names Supervising Deportation Officer Brenden Cuni as one of the agents present. He’s not believed to be the shooter.

Cuni has been named in several cases alleging violence against immigrants during arrests, and he’s been called to task by name by at least two Brooklyn Federal Court judges in cases where agents made arrests before writing up arrest warrants.

Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin has repeatedly defended the agents, painting Belgal as a “dangerous” criminal with ties to the Trinitarios — though the government hasn’t described what those ties might be —and saying that he “weaponized his vehicle” and accelerated at ICE officers as he tried to escape.

Belgal may have direct or indirect knowledge of a shooting of a Customs and Border Protection officer in Manhattan last year, Mullin said.

When asked to comment on Legal Aid’s petition to have Belgal released, DHS only sent quotes that Mullin said Friday, calling the detainee one of the “worst of the worst.” The federal Bureau of Prisons didn’t respond to questions about Belgal’s medical care.

On May 22, Judge Gonzalez ruled against ICE in the case of Ecuadorian immigrant Oscar Alexander Curimilma Quille, who was surrounded and arrested without a warrant during a vehicle stop outside his Patchogue home on April 30. The agents were targeting another person when they surveilled the vehicle.

In that case, ICE agents failed to include accurate information in those initial documents to show that Quille had the opportunity to explain he wasn’t dangerous or a flight risk, and gave “inconsistent” evidence about whether he tried to run from them.

“If the government did not accurately record the truth, Petitioner’s detention was a foregone conclusion. If the government did not even consider the truth and instead recorded what it thought would justify detention, that is far worse. Under either scenario, Petitioner was not afforded due process,” the judge wrote at the time.

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(New York Daily News reporter Molly Crane-Newman contributed to this story.)

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