Trump, Noem blame NYC border patrol agent shooting on sanctuary city policy, bail reform

Dave Goldiner and Rocco Parascandola, New York Daily News on Jul 21, 2025

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NEW YORK — President Donald Trump and his administration Monday sought to use the shooting of an off-duty Customs and Border Patrol agent in a Washington Heights park to bolster his hard-line stance on crime and immigration.

As officials charged Miguel Mora Nunez, 21, an undocumented Dominican immigrant with a long rap sheet, Trump blamed the botched robbery on what he called New York’s bail reform laws.

He denounced “cashless bail” and blamed the practice for setting “the worst criminals flooding on our streets.”

“Crime in American cities started to significantly rise when they went to cashless bail,” he wrote on his social media site. “It is a complete disaster, and must be ended, immediately.”

Contrary to Trump’s claim, big-city crime has been declining for several years since a COVID pandemic-era spike and is close to multidecade lows.

Although Trump didn’t specifically mention the Saturday night Washington Heights shooting in his latest post, he earlier called the attack an indictment of lax border enforcement policies.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem took dead aim at immigration in a Manhattan news conference about the shooting, which left the unidentified 42-year-old victim recovering from gunshot wounds.

“There is absolutely zero reason that someone who is scum of the earth like this should be running loose on the streets of New York City,” Noem said.

Noem blamed New York’s immigrant-friendly sanctuary city policies with allowing Mora to stay out of jail and avoid potential deportation despite his repeated brushes with law enforcement.

She called on Mayor Eric Adams and the City Council to reverse the sanctuary city policies, which restrict city police and law enforcement from fully cooperating with federal immigration authorities.

“Make no mistake, this officer is in the hospital today, fighting for his life, because of the policies of the mayor of the city and the City Council and the people that were in charge of keeping the public safe refused to do so,” she added.

Border czar Tom Homan said the shooting illustrates the danger facing immigration enforcement agents, even though authorities say there is no evidence the attacker knew the victim was an off-duty border patrol agent.

“Thank God we’re not burying one today,” Homan said.

Mora, who was born in the Dominican Republic, entered the country illegally through Arizona in 2023, authorities said.

He had two prior arrests for domestic violence in New York and was also wanted to face accusations of robbery and felony assault. He was also wanted in Massachusetts over a stolen weapons case, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.

A second man, said to be a 22-year-old friend of Mora from the Bronx, was arrested in connection with the attack Monday.

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