Over the weekend, an off-duty Border Patrol agent visiting Fort Washington Park in Manhattan was shot in the face in an obvious tried theft. The agent, who fortunately survived the encounter, managed to shoot his attacker, who was later taken into custody by police.
Police later revealed that the suspect in the brazen shooting, identified as 21-year-old Miguel Mora, had been wanted on charges in two other incidents: a theft in December 2024 and a felony assault in January 2025. Mora additionally occurs to be an undocumented resident; hailing from the Dominican Republic, federal officers and the NYPD stated he illegally crossed the border into Arizona from Mexico in 2023.
Two days after the taking pictures, Secretary of Homeland Safety Kristi Noem and Border Czar Tom Homan got here to Manhattan to vow that more ICE agents were on the way to do the job that they imagine town can not: Defend the individuals.
The information, in fact, are that town is secure and protects New Yorkers each day. Crime has fallen month after month below the path of Mayor Eric Adams and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, each of whom deserve credit score for his or her zero-tolerance efforts.
Make no mistake: There’s zero purpose why somebody like Mora — with a violent prison document to his identify — ought to stay in the USA in the event that they got here right here below unlawful pretenses.
That needs to be the only real focus of ICE’s operation: Rounding up the “dangerous guys” confirmed to have injured and endangered all New Yorkers and Individuals.
However as we all know from our months of coverage at immigration court in Lower Manhattan, ICE is not only rounding up the dangerous guys. They’re taking undocumented college students and dealing individuals who obey court docket orders and present up for mandated hearings, who haven’t any blemish to their information apart from they occur to be in New York Metropolis with out correct documentation.
We once more keep that having ICE proceed to troll courtroom hallways or streets and seize people who haven’t any severe prison information undermines ICE’s core mission to defend the nation’s homeland safety, and instills worry into individuals who simply need to work and reside in peace on this land of alternative.
ICE ought to give attention to catching the dangerous guys, interval.
As a substitute of roaming the halls of immigration court docket in masks and physique armor to take in any other case harmless individuals away, they should be working cooperatively with state and native regulation enforcement to get undocumented criminals off the streets of our metropolis. They have to adhere to due strategy of regulation, comply with the Structure and be clear about their actions.
That’s the path to reaching justice in New York — not intimidation techniques or scapegoating elected officers.
