A judge on Friday denied the temporary release of the Dominican man who was shot this month by a federal immigration officer in New York, ruling that he was in stable condition and receiving “appropriate” medical care at a federal jail in Brooklyn.
The man, Oscar Belgal, has been in custody since being shot and injured on Oct. 8, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents apprehended him while he was in a car with his 5-year-old son.
He is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal jail in Brooklyn, where his lawyers have said that he has been held in solitary confinement and without proper medical care while he awaited surgery to remove a bullet still lodged in his neck.
His lawyers had filed an emergency motion in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, requesting that Mr. Belgal be released on bond to receive medical treatment because his health was deteriorating.
But the federal judge, Hector Gonzalez, ruled that the government had submitted sufficient evidence, including medical records, that showed “he has received necessary and appropriate care and that his medical condition is stable.”
While Judge Gonzalez denied Mr. Belgal’s immediate release on medical grounds, he has yet to rule on an overarching lawsuit that argues Mr. Belgal should be released because he was unlawfully detained by ICE. The judge could rule on that lawsuit as soon as next week.
Neither the Legal Aid Society, which is representing Mr. Belgal, nor the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of ICE, responded immediately to a request for comment.
Though the medical records in the case are sealed, Judge Gonzalez’s ruling sheds some light on Mr. Belgal’s health two weeks since the shooting.
The filings submitted by the federal government, the judge said, showed that Mr. Belgal had been routinely evaluated since he was admitted to the Metropolitan Detention Center, and that he had received prescription medications and treatment for his gunshot wound.
Days after he arrived at the federal jail, Mr. Belgal was evaluated at Brooklyn Hospital Center, where he received medical scans that led doctors to conclude he did not need acute surgical or medical care, the judge said. An evaluation on Friday morning, the judge said, found that Mr. Belgal “does not show signs of a deteriorating condition.”
The ruling makes no mention of whether Mr. Belgal still has the bullet in his body.
The Trump administration, which had opposed the request for release, has said that Mr. Belgal, 28, entered the United States illegally and previously evaded arrest by ICE officers. Since his arrest, federal immigration officials have drawn attention to his criminal record in New York, which included arrests for robbery and drug dealing.
The shooting, the latest of more than two dozen involving ICE agents in the United States since 2025, set off demonstrations calling for his release and prompted outrage from Democratic leaders in New York, including Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The Department of Homeland Security and the Bronx district attorney are investigating the shooting, though neither has announced any findings.
The shooting happened after ICE officers in plain clothes set out to arrest Mr. Belgal in Marble Hill, a neighborhood in the southern Bronx but legally part of Manhattan.
Two officers in sweatshirts, one with his gun drawn, approached Mr. Belgal at about 4 p.m. after he parked his gray Honda on the street with his son inside. Surveillance video released by the New York Police Department shows Mr. Belgal accelerating his car as one ICE agent smashes the side window.
The Police Department videos that have been released do not show the shooting, which has remained a point of fierce contention between ICE and Mr. Belgal’s lawyers. Federal and local officials say at least one officer fired multiple rounds at Mr. Belgal’s vehicle, striking the left side of his neck and forcing him to crash into a concrete barrier.
Mr. Belgal’s lawyers have denounced the shooting as unlawful, saying that the officers never identified themselves and that Mr. Belgal drove away because he feared for his and his son’s life. ICE has said that Mr. Belgal disobeyed orders to exit the vehicle and that at least one officer fired his weapon as Mr. Belgal drove toward an officer and smashed into two ICE vehicles.
Police officers who responded to the scene took Mr. Belgal to nearby NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital, where he remained for about five hours before being discharged. He was transported the next day to the Metropolitan Detention Center, where ICE holds some detainees.
Mr. Belgal’s lawyers said last week that doctors at the hospital had told Mr. Belgal that he would need to return for surgery, and asserted that the jail had denied him adequate medical care for the gunshot wound. The lawyers said in their emergency petition that “the entire left side of Oscar’s face remains numb.”
“He struggles to hear anything out of his left ear, describing what he does hear as sounding as if it were far-off in the distance,” the petition said. “Meanwhile, jail staff offer him only ibuprofen for his pain.”
The Federal Bureau of Prisons, which runs the Metropolitan Detention Center, declined to comment on the conditions in which Mr. Belgal was held, citing privacy and security reasons. But the bureau said that the jail “does not deny any inmate necessary medical treatment or basic necessities.”
“All individuals in our custody have access to chronic medical care and appointments, as well as urgent and emergent evaluations when needed,” Emery Nelson, a spokesman for the bureau, said in a statement last week.
Santul Nerkar contributed reporting.
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