Mamdani's ICE lot threat puts sanctuary over federal law

Oscar Belgal was 28 when ICE agents shot him in Marble Hill. His 5-year-old son was in the car. Federal agents had reportedly staged from a private lot nearby.

That shooting, and the staging that preceded it, sits behind the latest confrontation between New York City Hall and federal immigration authorities. On Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, Mayor Zohran Mamdani sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, acting ICE Director David Venturella, and ICE New York Field Office Director Kenneth Genalo. He demanded that agents stop using city-owned parking lots to stage enforcement operations and warned that the city would sue if the practice continued.

The letter cites reports that, since July, ICE agents parked vehicles and held meetings at a city lot at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx and along 111th Street near Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens. The Queens lot sits next to a city-run preschool and the New York Hall of Science. The city says it never authorized the activity.

Mamdani framed the fight as enforcement of sanctuary policy. "We want to make very clear that we mean what we say when we talk about sanctuary city policies and we talk about the fact that our city will not assist in immigration enforcement," he told reporters Monday. "What we've seen all too often is ICE's flouting of those directives and those laws. And this is a letter to make clear that ICE has no right to use any city property or lots for anti-immigrant operations and that we are willing to go to court if they continue to do so."

In a separate statement he went further: "ICE has no right to use our property as a base for tearing families apart. That applies to every park and lot this City owns. This unauthorized use of City property must end now. Today, I'm telling DHS to order its agents off our lots. If they keep coming back, we will see them in court."

The same day, the Parks Department issued new instructions. Workers are to deny ICE entry to nonpublic lots and areas without a judicial warrant, check identification, contact general counsel, forward any warrant to agency attorneys, and call 911 if agents enter without authorization. They are told not to physically or verbally confront agents. The policy builds on an executive order Mamdani signed in February barring non-city law enforcement from using city-owned parking lots as staging grounds without a judicial warrant or qualifying exception. District Council 37, which represents many Parks workers, backed the training approach through executive director Henry Garrido.

Mid-October, after the Belgal shooting, Mamdani and more than 100 elected officials, including Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, had already urged private lot owners to deny ICE access. Monday's letter escalates that campaign from private property to municipal ground and from persuasion to threatened litigation.

The Department of Homeland Security answered directly. A DHS spokesperson said ICE's presence in public parking lots is fully authorized under federal law and is standard practice for law enforcement nationwide. "Mayor Mamdani should be grateful to our brave law enforcement officers for cleaning up the streets of NYC since he won't. Luckily, 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. Seven of the 10 safest cities in America cooperate with ICE."

That is the core collision. Immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility under the Constitution. Cities do not get to write their own border policy by padlocking parking lots. When a mayor treats ICE staging on public asphalt as "illegal commandeering," he is not defending property management. He is attempting to raise the cost of federal operations inside a jurisdiction that already limits cooperation with immigration detainers and jail releases. The sanctuary framework Mamdani invokes is a local choice. It is not a grant of authority to nullify federal agents' lawful use of open public space.