A US immigration officer shot a Dominican man in the neck as he drove in a car with a five-year-old boy, sparking outrage. 

The Department of Homeland Security said it was seeking to arrest the man in a “targeted enforcement operation” on Thursday, but protesters and local officials decried it as an example of the dangers of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Twenty-eight-year-old Oscar Belgal survived and was treated at a hospital.

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Mr Belgal was pulling into a parking space when a plainclothes federal officer approached with a gun drawn, followed by another officer, also not in uniform. 

Mr Belgal started to pull the car forward, and then at least one of the officers fired seven rounds, hitting the man below his left ear.

An NYPD security camera recorded some of the events leading up to the gunfire, but not the shooting itself.

The child was unharmed and with a relative. 

DHS said it was seeking to arrest a “criminal illegal alien” with a grand larceny conviction and a drug charge, which Mr Belgal had pleaded not guilty to.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the shooting an outrage.

“There is no justification for what we have seen today,” Mr Mamdani said, noting the officers wore hi-vis vests and masks, making them difficult to identify as immigration officers. 

He said federal authorities later removed the man from the hospital despite his and Governor Kathy Hochul’s requests for Mr Belgal’s release.

Bystander videos showed a man sitting on the ground with his hands behind his back, in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, which took place around 4pm in Marble Hill, Manhattan. 

Another video shows New York City police officers picking up Mr Belgal and carrying him into a police vehicle.

Ms Tisch said the shooting left the car with a bullet entry point on its front windshield and an exit point in one of its rear windows.

Demonstrators gathered at the scene, chanting: “Ice off our streets now!” and then marched to the hospital where Mr Belgal was being treated. 

A crowd blocked an intersection, and as police set barricades so ambulances could pass, some protesters shoved at the barriers and hurled water bottles at officers. 

Ice agents have fired their guns during more than a dozen vehicle stops since last year, killing at least four people and wounding others.