In his first televised interview since a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot Oscar Bergal in New York City last week, Mayor Zohran Mamdani told MS NOW’s Jacob Soboroff that during a nearly two-hour phone call with President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, he demanded the agency cease its operations in the city. Mamdani said ICE’s actions were “making a mockery of what law and order is supposed to be” and leaving residents in a “state of terror.”

Bergal, a 28-year-old Dominican national — whose last name has also been reported as “Belgal” — was shot in the neck while sitting in a car with his 5-year-old son during an attempted arrest Thursday afternoon in Marble Hill, a neighborhood in northern Manhattan. Federal officials have defended the operation, citing Bergal’s criminal history and alleged gang affiliations.

According to Mamdani, Thursday’s shooting was yet another example of ICE’s disregard of protocol. “What they have shown, time and again, is that they view the law as a suggestion,” he said. “There is a reason why the NYPD would not be shooting at a moving vehicle. There is a reason why law enforcement agents are supposed to wear identifiable information and uniforms.”

Mamdani said bystanders witnessed a scene that looked more like a mass shooting than a law enforcement operation. “We’re talking about people carrying their shopping bags, walking by a bodega, thinking they’re on their way home, then they hear shots ring out. And they don’t even know whether this is from someone who is supposed to be a law enforcement agent or just someone who is terrorizing the city,” he said. “And when it comes to ICE, there is no difference between those two things.”

Asked whether the city would pursue criminal charges against the agent who fired, Mamdani told Soboroff that local authorities were investigating. “Right now, this case is with District Attorney Clark in the Bronx, and I am fully confident in the district attorney,” he said.

Mamdani also discussed his nearly two-hour call with Trump and Mullin shortly after the shooting, during which he said he pressed the administration to end its immigration operations in New York City.

“I’ve said directly to the president, I’ve said directly to the secretary, as someone who cares about public safety, who cares about law and order, I am demanding that ICE cease their operations in our city immediately,” he said. “Because these operations make New Yorkers less safe. They leave New Yorkers in a state of terror, and that is something that should be opposed by all of us.”

Mamdani said he told Trump that public safety was one of his “top priorities” and argued that ICE’s presence undermined that goal. “It is from that concern that I believe that ICE should not be in this city at all,” the mayor said. “ICE should, frankly, not even be an agency that exists, because what we see from their actions is an agency that terrorizes, one that creates a sense of fear, as opposed to any idea of safety.”

Soboroff asked if, given that the mayor has met and spoken by phone with the president on several occasions since he returned to the White House, Mamdani believed his “cordial“ relationship with Trump had helped the city. Mamdani pointed to the release of a New York City college student from ICE detention after an earlier meeting but acknowledged that his negotiations after the shooting of Bergal had not produced the outcome he wanted.

“Those two hours over the course of Thursday evening, those negotiations, they were ultimately unsuccessful,” Mamdani said. “However, I would be betraying my duty as the mayor of our city if I did not try at every single juncture with every single person to keep this city safe, and that is something that I will always continue to do.”

“A willingness to negotiate should never be understood as a willingness to surrender our principles,” he said.

You can watch Soboroff’s full interview with Mamdani in the clip at the top of the page.

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