ICE Enforcement Leaves Families Facing Injury and Removal

Oscar Belgal’s lawyers are seeking his release after ICE agents shot him in the neck in Marble Hill, New York, while his 5-year-old son sat in the back seat. Belgal remains detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, and a bullet is still lodged in his neck, according to attorneys for The Legal Aid Society.

Injuries and detention

Attorneys Perry McAninch and Elyssa Williams said agents didn’t identify themselves or show documentation before they fired into Belgal’s vehicle. In a statement, they said ICE officers “failed to provide him with immediate medical assistance.” His medical needs remain unmet at a facility they called “notorious for medical neglect.” They asked the court to order his immediate release.

The Department of Homeland Security didn’t comment on the new allegations. It previously said agents fired because they believed their lives were in danger and alleged Belgal has ties to the Trinitarios gang.

A judge temporarily barred Belgal’s deportation or transfer to a facility outside the Southern or Eastern Districts of New York or the District of New Jersey unless the court first approves it. The order doesn’t release him from detention.

A separate lawsuit concerns Ernesto Zuniga Hilario, a Mexican national who lived in the United States for nearly two decades. He says officials removed him without a valid removal order or a meaningful chance to challenge the decision. His attorneys filed a writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.

According to the petition, Zuniga Hilario was traveling with his family to a therapy appointment when officers apprehended him. Officials held him at the T. Don Hutto detention facility in Taylor, Texas. The petition says he declined repeated offers of voluntary departure because he wanted to present his case and expected to appear before an immigration judge. It alleges officers put him on a bus, took him to an airport and flew him to Mexico City without giving him a meaningful opportunity to contest removal.

Zuniga Hilario says he left involuntarily. He is married to Obdulia Cervantes Vega, whom the filing identifies as a lawful permanent resident, and has four U.S.-citizen children. He says he last entered the United States without inspection around 2008 and lived near Lometa, Texas.

Competing accounts and state action

The Department of Homeland Security said ICE arrested Zuniga Hilario on September 6 after a traffic stop conducted by the Lampasas County Sheriff's Office. A spokesperson said he signed a voluntary departure form in blue ink on September 6 and returned to Mexico on September 16. The petition disputes that account, alleging he repeatedly declined voluntary departure. DHS said he entered the country illegally “at an unknown date and time by sneaking across our border on foot.”

His attorneys say he wasn’t subject to an expedited removal order or an order issued by an immigration judge. The petition acknowledges a possible jurisdictional hurdle: Zuniga Hilario had already been removed when his case was filed. His lawyers argue the case differs because, they allege, no underlying removal order existed and he had no meaningful opportunity to challenge the action.

A new project backed by Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker's administration and the Illinois Accountability Commission documents nearly 500 accounts from immigrants and U.S. citizens who say they were detained, deported, separated from families or otherwise harmed by immigration enforcement. Its interactive database includes profiles that may contain photographs, video and audio recordings. Organizers say they intend to build a public historical record that can grow over time.

A record of enforcement

The site reports that more than 605,000 people have been deported under the second Trump administration, 400,000 have been detained by ICE and 33 people have been killed. The database includes Lorenza Salgado Araujo and Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero, whom the report says ICE agents shot dead in Texas and Maine, respectively, in July. It also includes Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, U.S. citizens fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis in January.

The state's Democratic governor created the Illinois Accountability Commission in October 2025 amid Operation Midway Blitz, ICE enforcement activity in Chicago and surrounding areas. Local protesters clashed with federal agents. Local law enforcement stepped in to try to keep the peace. Agents faced accusations of abuse during raids of Chicago apartment buildings and in their treatment of local police and reporters. The commission marked the first state effort to investigate federal officers and their activities while the operation unfolded.

Beatriz Lopez, co-founder and executive director of the Democracy Power Project, said the state’s effort had limits: “There's obviously more that can be done, but a state can only do so much.” She said the project aims to document people’s stories and the work of states seeking accountability. Lopez said future policy changes must ensure the events “can never happen again.”

Pritzker said the administration had sent “thousands of masked federal agents to harass, intimidate, and abuse our people.” The Department of Homeland Security and the wider Trump administration say ICE targets dangerous offenders, including people with alleged gang ties or convictions for violent offenses. An ICE spokesperson said officers receive ongoing training and called them “heroes” who put their lives on the line to arrest people accused of serious crimes.