It was business as usual on crime-ridden Roosevelt Avenue Monday — despite ICE ramping up immigration enforcement raids and President Trump’s promise of an even tougher crackdown on Democrat-run cities.
A smattering of sex workers and knockoff goods-peddlers working the seedy stretch of Queens told The Post they were afraid of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement hitting the area, but not enough to keep them from plying their trades.
“I don’t want to be here. I’m scared. I watch every minute to see if ICE shows up and I’m ready to run,” said Martina, a street walker who came to the US from Venezuela about two years ago.
“This has been every day. First I was scared of the police and now I’m scared of ICE. But what can I do? I have babies at home and I have no husband to provide for us,” she continued.
“If ICE takes me, I don’t know what happens to them,” she said. “I’m scared every day.”
The thoroughfare has long been a center of migrant criminal activity.
Locals earlier this year penned a letter to Trump border czar Tom Homan asking for federal assistance to deal with the rampant street crime they claimed was being spurred by homeless illegal immigrants.
The street was also once a breeding ground for sex-trafficking being perpetrated by gangs like Tren de Aragua, according to law-enforcement sources. Advocates told The Post last year the vicious gang targeted women in city migrant shelters and forced them into sex work.
Gov. Kathy Hochul sent in hundreds of state troopers last fall to take control of the area.
The infamous “Market of Sweethearts” — the blighted section of the avenue known for open-air drug markets and streetwalkers strolling its grubby sidewalks in broad daylight — appeared decidedly less shady Monday. --->READ MORE HERE
The red lights are back flashing along a notorious prostitution strip in New York City represented by progressive Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Grace Meng.
Along the crammed, grimy sidewalks of Roosevelt Avenue in Queens, sex workers are once again openly soliciting clients while vendors grill meats and hawk suspected stolen or counterfeit goods – despite police waging a months-long crackdown to stop the chaos.
It’s become a way of life – and a years-long blight – for residents in the migrant-dense neighborhood who say they have grown tired of calling on Ocasio-Cortez and Meng to act and liken conditions to a “Red Light district” or a third-world flea market.
Others have nicknamed the strip the “Avenue of the Sweethearts,” given its reputation for women purportedly turning tricks
“All the criminal activity has reverted to the way it was last year,” Ramses Frias, a local activist and Republican City Council candidate, told Fox News Digital. “Our residents feel like prisoners in their own homes while criminals walk freely, preying on helpless victims.”
He said gangs like the 18th Street gang and Tren de Aragua are suspected of operating in the area since various spots are graffiti–tagged with their insignia.
Fox News Digital visited Roosevelt Avenue after Ocasio-Cortez’s town hall last month and witnessed as many as 30 women on one block appearing to offer sex for money to Friday night revelers while parents and children walked by.
The women were jostling men and enticing them for sex despite a visible police presence nearby. Most women operate on Meng’s side of the strip; the majority of vendors are on Ocasio-Cortez’s side, with their district border running through the center of the street.
Hours before the town hall, other sidewalks were jammed with vendors flogging counterfeit Apple headphones and watches and tools. Food vendors sizzled meats at vendor stalls and kept juices in massive, unlabeled canisters under the gritty subway underpass – devoid of any labels or apparent sanitation or health and safety standards. Fruit and ice-cream stalls also permeated the busy strip.
Fox News Digital returned to the neighborhood on Friday and witnessed much of the same rampant prostitution and illegal vending. Additionally, several women were threading eyebrows along a sidewalk on a commercial street just off Roosevelt Avenue, while men were selling sneakers from cars and other food vendors were seen dumping wastewater down drains. --->READ MORE HERE
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