NYC mayor calls on parking garage owners and operators to keep ICE off their property
Mayor Zohran Mamdani along with more than 100 elected officials are urging New Yorkers to not rent, lend, or make their properties available to ICE.
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One week after ICE agents shot 28-year-old Oscar Belgal during a targeted operation in Marble Hill, more than 100 elected officials are joining Mayor Zohran Mamdani in urging New Yorkers not to rent, lend, or make their private property available to ICE as a staging area for immigration enforcement operations.
In a letter released on Friday, Mayor Mamdani said the city has taken steps to ensure properties under New York City's control are not used for federal immigration enforcement. However, those protections do not extend to privately owned garages, parking lots, and other private properties.
“Last week, ICE agents shot a father in the neck in Marble Hill while his 5-year-old son sat in the car,” said Mayor Mamdani. “City law already bars ICE from using City property as a base of operations. Federal agents are turning to private parking lots, including a lot just blocks from where they shot Mr. Belgal. I am asking every garage and lot owner in this city to stop giving them that option. Do not rent your property to ICE. Do not lend it to them. Tell them they are not welcome. More than 100 elected officials from across New York are standing with me to make that request. We know this kind of action can already make a difference: After neighbors spoke up, a garage on Morton Street removed ICE vehicles from its property. Every owner has the power to do the same. Our neighbors should not live in fear that the parking lot down the block could become a staging ground for an operation that puts their communities at risk.”
The call comes as city officials and immigrant advocacy groups pointed to a Target on Marble Hill as the location agents were staging operations from.
Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, one of the elected officials who signed the letter, said he believes ICE operations are putting communities at risk.
"I don't want people in my community or in the Bronx or anywhere being endangered by reckless actions of under trained ICE agents,” Dinowitz told News 12 following a rally on Thursday.
Since Belgal's arrest, a spokesperson for Target told News 12 the company does not have an agreement with ICE or any other immigration enforcement agency to use its properties.
Read the full letter by the mayor and elected officials here.
