Mamdani Squeezed From Both Sides in Week Capped by ICE Shooting

A slow-burning conflict between New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Trump administration over immigration turned into a fierce confrontation after a federal agent shot a man on a city street during an enforcement operation.

The shooting sparked angry protests where police made several arrests and prompted Mamdani, who has maintained an outwardly cordial relationship with President Donald Trump since being sworn in as mayor, to demand an end to Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in the city.

Mamdani said that he’d spent hours on the phone negotiating with Trump and Mullin for the release the wounded man, 28-year-old Oscar Belgal, without success.

“We want ICE out of our city, ICE out of our schools, ICE out of our hospitals, ICE out of our streets, ICE away from our kids,” Mamdani said at a news conference on Thursday. “This is an agency that must be abolished.”

On Friday, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin scoffed at Mamdani’s demands, referring to Belgal as a “thug” and accusing the mayor of overlooking a recent alleged attack on an off-duty police officer by migrants.

“If you abolish ICE, who’s going to take criminals off the streets of your own town?” Mullin said.

Read More: Trump Officials Clash With Mamdani Over ICE Shooting in NYC

For Mamdani, a democratic socialist often at odds with Trump over policy, the episode capped a tumultuous week in which he took criticism not only from critics who routinely decry his progressive agenda, but also from allies who say he isn’t doing enough to push it forward.

As Mamdani spoke on Thursday night, he was at times drowned out by protesters critical of him, of New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch, and of the role that they say local police are playing in immigration enforcement. A Mamdani ally, Democratic congressional nominee Darializa Avila Chevalier, called on Friday for Tisch’s resignation.

“The NYPD spent more time protecting a militia that just shot someone than protecting New Yorkers,” Chevalier said in a statement, arguing Tisch and the NYPD were violating the spirit of the city’s sanctuary policies. The New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America said if Tisch can’t end NYPD “complicity” with ICE and protect peaceful protesters, “she must be fired.”

The ICE shooting capped a fraught stretch for the mayor. A day earlier, the anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel became a political fight after Mamdani issued a statement mourning the more than 1,100 Israelis killed that day while also at length denouncing Israel’s war in Gaza as an “ongoing genocide.”

That drew condemnation from the Anti-Defamation League, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and Israeli diplomats. But the anniversary also prompted a furious response from critics to his left, as pro-Palestinian demonstrators booed and called him a traitor at a Union Square vigil intended to honor victims of the attack and Palestinians killed in Gaza since.

The back-to-back blowups were unusual for a mayor whose nearly 10 months in office have largely been defined by persistently high approval ratings and mostly deft handling of political and logistical crises, from snowstorms to crime to interactions with the federal government.

Mamdani has long faced criticism from Republicans and more moderate Democrats. But until now, his support on the left had largely held.

“His pitch to the left has been that ‘the best thing that can happen to left politics in America is I am a successful mayor,’” said Evan Roth Smith, a Democratic political consultant and co-founder of Slingshot Strategies. “Until this week, that has been good enough to keep protests from the left at bay.”

Patience with Mamdani on the left over his handling of the NYPD is “waning,” said Michael Lange, a political analyst writing a book about Mamdani’s mayoralty. Dissatisfaction over policing is “gaining at least some degree of momentum,” he said. Mamdani is unlikely to remove Tisch, a well-regarded police chief who has presided over declining crime rates citywide.

This week’s events hinted at a potentially damaging pattern for Mamdani: crises that leave him squeezed between critics to his right and supporters on the left who believe he has fallen short, Smith said. “If that becomes the way every story and moment plays out for Zohran Mamdani, that’s a really difficult pattern for him to escape,” he said.

Still, Smith cautioned against reading too much into one rough stretch for Mamdani, who he called one of the most talented politicians of his generation.

“A bad week is never a fatal week,” he said.