By Josthyn Ramos
The Bronx man shot in the neck by ICE officers on October 8 briefly appeared in immigration court October 15 via a video feed from detention. Lawyers for Oscar Belgal asked that he be moved out of 24-hour solitary confinement where he is unable to communicate with family, use the telephone, or access his commissary.
Belgal’s solitary confinement complicated his video appearance before Immigration Judge Dara Reid. After multiple delays, Belgal’s lawyer, Karene Brown of the Legal Aid Society, asked the judge whether the 28-year-old was still being held at Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC). The delays continued. Judge Reid heard other cases while waiting for Belgal to appear. Reid grew irritated by the lack of coordination within the detention center. “Do you see the time we are wasting?” Reid asked. “This is every day.”
When Belgal finally appeared via video feed on the personal computer of an MDC detention officer, the faint noise of rattling chains could be heard. Brown said the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been asked to transfer Belgal out of solitary but has declined to do so. Reid responded that she did not have jurisdiction over his detention.
Before his lawyer advised him not to speak, Belgal offered a muted protest about the conditions in Spanish, “Pero como me tienen aquí.” The specifics of his confinement were left to be addressed in an upcoming bond hearing.
Belgal, a Dominican national, was approached by masked men with guns drawn after picking up his son from school. According to the habeas petition filed by his attorneys, “the men did not identify themselves, show any documents or otherwise communicate with Oscar in any substantive way.” The first man to approach the driver’s side of Belgal’s car “struck and shattered Oscar’s window and began firing a pistol into Oscar’s car while his son cowered in the back seat,” according to the petition.
One of the bullets struck Belgal in the neck and he began to bleed. Belgal stepped out of the vehicle and pleaded for help and medical assistance, but allegedly the officers neither provided no aid, nor did they identify themselves. Belgal learned they were ICE officers only at the hospital. The bullet was still lodged in his neck, his attorneys said.
Belgal’s attorneys have petitioned the federal district court for his immediate release from detention through a writ of habeas corpus, saying “ICE’s egregious actions violate fundamental principles of every legal structure that constrains its conduct and authority—the Constitution, the statutory and regulatory framework, and even its own internal policies.”
Belgal’s next hearing is scheduled for October 29.