On Tuesday, October 13th, The Remedy Project joined with other members of the MDC Brooklyn Community Support Coalition to rally in light of the recent shooting, detention, and mistreatment of Oscar Belgal by ICE. Sign-up to follow the work of the coalition in the form attached. YYou can read and watch coverage of the rally here:
The following is The Remedy Project's statement following the rally.
New York, NY – On Thursday, October 8, 2026, Oscar Belgal was shot in the neck by plainclothes ICE officers while in the car with his 5 year old son in the Marble Hill neighborhood of New York City. Following the shooting, Mr. Belgal was transported to NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital, where he was held briefly before being transported to immigration detention. On Friday October 9, he arrived at NYC's only federal immigration and criminal detention facility, MDC Brooklyn. According to Belgal’s legal counsel, he is being held in solitary confinement and the bullet he was shot with remains lodged in his neck.
Mr. Belgal’s appalling treatment is only the latest act of state-sanctioned violence directed at criminalized individuals in this country. Where he now resides, MDC Brooklyn, has long been infamous for its horrendous conditions, including frequent lockdowns that confine people for 23 hours a day in 8-by-10-foot cells, no access to outdoor space, very limited access to medical services, including no doctors on site after 5 p.m. or on weekends, maggot-infested and moldy food, racist and violent harassment by correctional officers, overuse of solitary confinement, and restriction of access to outside communication, including visitation, mail, and phone. have, over the last 5 months, documented the prison’s torturous and inhumane conditions through administrative remedies submitted on behalf of 37 contacts at the facility. The grievances corroborate long substantiated claims about MDC Brooklyn, and paint a picture of the daily horror persisting behind its walls. These grievances can be made available on request. The following are a few quotes from our members at MDC Brooklyn.
Statement about medical services from Remedy Project member Vincent Cannady, currently detained at MDC Brooklyn:
“I’ve been assaulted myself, I’ve had at least 2 heart attacks here at MDC. They stop people from getting healthcare… It definitely earns its reputation as one of the worst jails in America. We have almost no civil rights here. We have a 74 year old gentleman here who was beaten up by ICE, he came with no teeth in his mouth, his shoulder broken. You get people here inside who are assaulted, stabbed, who don’t receive medical care… And tonight, at 5 o'clock, Dr. Baylor [sic] and Dr. Awad [sic] leave, and there is no doctor again until Monday morning. So if I or Mark or any of the other people with heart ailments have a heart attack, that buzzer that you heard earlier, the panic button, the officer does not even come to check on you.”
Statement about living conditions and medical care from Remedy Project member Jermaine Brown, detained at MDC Brooklyn:
“I was sent to a pretrial unit that had fake, dirty mattresses, yoga style, filthy, thin, no plastic, no covering on it, caught a skin infection. Told by staff that if I don’t take the beds, you’re going to the box. Who does that? … Also, sick call hasn’t called me about food poisoning for 3 weeks, since I requested, so I had to take someone else’s medicine. Imagine taking someone else’s medicine because the sick call is too crowded.”
Statement from Anna Sugrue, Director of The Remedy Project:
“The shooting, kidnapping, incarceration, and mistreatment of Oscar Belgal at MDC Brooklyn serve as a stark reminder of how intertwined criminal and immigration enforcement are in this country. The violence that Belgal and the other 1,300 people incarcerated at MDC Brooklyn experience every day is unconscionable, but not new. If democratic lawmakers are serious about abolishing ICE, then they must also investigate and address the normalized violence in our criminal justice system. No human being deserves to be treated this way, regardless of their immigration status or their involvement with law enforcement. The tortuous conditions at MDC Brooklyn, and in every prison and detention center in this country, do not make us safer, and they do not bring us justice.
We believe MDC Brooklyn should be shut down, but not without serious consideration of the impact that closure will have on the people detained there and their families. In the meantime, local, state, and federal lawmakers can do much more to protect those incarcerated there, including urging changes in federal sentencing law that decrease the jail population, holding correctional officers accountable for abuse, and allowing social, clergy, and press visits. We cannot trust the Bureau of Prisons, the Department of Justice, or The Department of Homeland Security to maintain a basic, humane standard of living at this facility. It is up to us in the public to demand it, and to not stop until those demands are met.”
Statement from Colin Adams Advocacy Director e Remedy Project:
“The conditions reported to us every day from MDC Brooklyn are not flukes. The Bureau of Prisons will tell you that these problems do not exist, or are the product of understaffing, underfunding, old infrastructure, or simply the nature of housing “bad people”. This is not true. These conditions are intentional, and persist in every prison and detention center in this country we’ve ever heard a report from.”
