A federal order spells out that ICE cannot remove the man shot in the Bronx without another court order, and bars transfers beyond three nearby federal court districts unless a court authorizes them. The order remains in force unless the judge assigned to his case changes it, despite a separate denial of an emergency request.
Court filings spell the man’s surname Bergal; Courthouse News identifies him as Oscar Belgal. He was shot by an ICE officer during an enforcement operation in the Bronx and remains in federal custody, as an earlier report on the case described.
What does the judge’s order prevent?
Judge J. Paul Oetken’s Oct. 9 order bars Bergal’s removal from the United States without further court authorization. It also prohibits moving him to a facility outside the Southern District of New York, the Eastern District of New York or the District of New Jersey unless a court permits the transfer.
The order’s specific district boundaries clarify where ICE may hold Bergal without additional authorization. It does not release him, end his detention or require medical treatment. It also does not decide whether his detention is lawful.
Oetken issued the restrictions to preserve the court’s ability to consider Bergal’s petition challenging his detention. The order says it remains effective unless the judge assigned to the case vacates or changes it.
The transfer restriction comes as ICE has defended moving Bergal outside New York. Marcos Charles, ICE’s executive associate director of enforcement and removal operations, told Courthouse News Service that the agency cited Bergal’s criminal history and a history of fleeing as reasons for placing him in an out-of-state detention facility. Oetken’s order now requires court authorization for a move beyond the three named districts.
The order is not a ruling on the shooting. Federal officials have defended the officers’ actions by saying they believed they were in danger because Bergal accelerated toward them, the Associated Press reported. Oetken’s order addresses removal, transfer and the court’s ability to consider Bergal’s custody challenge, not the competing accounts of the encounter.
Why did the judges issue separate rulings?
Bergal filed a habeas petition on Oct. 8 under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, a legal process for asking a court to review custody. Filing the petition did not itself stop ICE from removing him; the removal pause came from Oetken’s separate order. The case docket lists the petition and a separate emergency request for a temporary restraining order.
On Friday, Oct. 9, Judge John P. Cronan, the judge assigned to the case, held a hearing and denied Bergal’s temporary restraining order request without prejudice. That ruling did not resolve the habeas petition or cancel Oetken’s separate order.
The two actions have different effects. Cronan’s denial concerned the emergency request; Oetken’s order expressly remains in place unless Cronan modifies or vacates it. Bergal’s challenge to his detention remains pending.
Cronan directed Bergal to submit a status letter by noon Tuesday, Oct. 13, addressing the court’s jurisdiction and next steps. The filing deadline is the next scheduled step in the case, not a final decision on whether Bergal’s detention is lawful.
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Does the order protect other people facing deportation?
No. Oetken’s order applies to Bergal; it does not create a general ban on deportations or transfers for other people. The distinction is important: a petition asking a court to review detention is not, by itself, a removal pause. In Bergal’s case, that protection comes from the specific order the judge issued.
The current order also does not stop every possible transfer. ICE may move Bergal within the Southern or Eastern Districts of New York or the District of New Jersey; a transfer outside those districts requires further court authorization. The same order bars his removal from the country without another court order.
The restrictions are therefore immediate but limited. They preserve Bergal’s ability to pursue his case in court while leaving him in federal custody, and they do not determine the outcome of that challenge.
What have Bergal’s lawyers said about his detention?
Bergal’s attorneys said Sunday that he remained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, had a bullet lodged in his neck and had not undergone surgery. News 12 reported the lawyers’ account on Monday.
The attorneys also alleged that Bergal was being held in solitary confinement, had not eaten since the shooting, and reported numbness and hearing problems. Make the Road New York and The Legal Aid Society, which represent him, have called for his release and medical care.
Those concerns sit outside the removal order’s terms: it does not direct ICE to release Bergal or provide treatment. The next scheduled court step is the status letter due Tuesday at noon.
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