The Trump administration vowed Monday to “flood” New York City with ICE agents to round up illegal immigrant criminals after an off-duty border officer was shot in the face during what authorities say was a botched robbery attempt by two illegal immigrants.

The officer and one of the two migrants — whom authorities identified as Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez, an illegal immigrant caught and released during the Biden border surge — exchanged gunfire Saturday and both were hit.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Mr. Nunez shouldn’t have been in the country in the first place, and once he was, he amassed such a long criminal record that he should have been behind bars or turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation.

Instead, she said, New York’s sanctuary policies allowed him to be free on the streets.

“They’re setting the American public up to become victims of crime, and it has to stop,” she said.

She and White House border czar Tom Homan said they’ll surge ICE officers into New York to try to get at illegal immigrants with criminal records that the city can’t, or won’t, hold.

“We’re gonna flood the zone,” Mr. Homan said.

Ms. Noem blamed Mayor Eric Adams and the city council for refusing to cooperate with ICE on deporting illegal immigrant criminals who end up in their jails.

Mr. Homan said ICE had placed a deportation “detainer” request for Mr. Nunez to be turned over to immigration authorities instead of being released from local custody.

Ms. Noem said his record included arrests for kidnapping, armed robbery with a firearm, witness intimidation, grand larceny and assault.

The incident comes as New York is in the middle of a mayoral election. Mr. Adams, who was first elected as a Democrat, is running for reelection as an independent. Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, won Democrats’ primary.

Mr. Adams told reporters the issue wasn’t his level of cooperation but rather state bail reform laws that forced the city to release Mr. Nunez despite repeated arrests.

“I am extremely angry that we have a Customs and Border Patrol agent that is in the hospital because a person that should have not been on our street was on our street. And I’ve said this over and over again,” Mr. Adams said, according to Spectrum News.

Mr. Mamdani had yet to comment on the officer’s shooting as of Monday afternoon.

Mr. Nunez was taken into custody Sunday. Homeland Security said a suspected accomplice, Cristian Aybar Berroa, was nabbed by federal agents Monday.

Mr. Berroa, who entered the U.S. in 2022 and was granted a “parole” by the Biden administration, also had a lengthy rap sheet, with arrests for larceny, reckless endangerment and driving without a license. He also had an outstanding deportation order from Jan. 3, 2023.

New York defied a deportation detainer request for him, Homeland Security said.

Both men are from the Dominican Republic.

The Saturday attack was captured on a grainy video, which shows two men on a motor scooter ride along, spot their target on the shore of the Hudson River, and circle back. One makes the approach, then pinpricks of gunfire erupt.

The wounded officer, who was not identified, was still hospitalized but is expected to recover. 

Authorities say the attempted robbery appears to have been a random targeting, though Ms. Noem said it comes at a time when attacks on federal immigration officers are rising.

She said ICE officers have seen an 830% increase in assaults.

Trump officials say that’s because more ICE officers are out in the community carrying out President Trump’s “mass deportation” plans — and they are facing rising anti-ICE rhetoric from those who oppose the increase in enforcement.

Mr. Trump’s new Big Beautiful Bill budget law includes tens of billions of dollars for ICE to increase its detention and deportation capacity, including hiring thousands more officers to hit the streets to target illegal immigrants.

“Sanctuary cities are sanctuaries for criminals. Hard stop,” Mr. Homan said.

He said if the sanctuaries’ goal is to protect law-abiding immigrants, it’s backfiring because ICE will have to surge more people into communities to get targets — and if they find other illegal immigrants at the same time, they’ll arrest them, too.

Mr. Homan said the answer is for sanctuaries to allow ICE into their jails to arrest criminal illegal immigrants there.

“If we can’t arrest a bad guy in the safety and security of a jail, we’ll arrest them in the community,” he said.

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.