“Operation Restore Roosevelt deflects the anger and fear of other working-class New Yorkers onto disabled people, queer people, or immigrants trying to survive in an increasingly expensive city.”

One week after Mayor Eric Adams and Councilmember Francisco Moya launched Operation Restore Roosevelt, I gathered with my fellow DecrimNY organizers on the steps of Corona Plaza to speak out against it.

In press statements, Adams and Moya claimed the multi-agency enforcement scheme was about public safety and quality-of-life improvements in Queens. As a coalition of sex workers, street vendors, and allied community members, we watched as waves of state and city police cudgeled our community.

RELATED READING: The Immigrant Sex Workers Caught Up in ‘Operation Restore Roosevelt’

When a youth organizer with Make the Road New York spoke, she was interrupted halfway through her speech by the arrival of former State Sen. Hiram Monserrate. Monserrate, himself convicted of corruption and assaulting his ex-girlfriend, has prominently campaigned for an increase in police presence in the area. He claimed the enforcement was to protect the children and accused activists of not being from the community. Unheard over the media clamor, the youth organizer continued: “Cops do not make me or my friends feel safe.”

Under Adams, illegal police stops have risen under the guise of getting guns off the streets. We’ve also seen him vehemently oppose a solitary confinement ban and a bill requiring increased reporting from officers.

Our city’s leadership tightly links safety with increased police surveillance. In reality, the city is engaging in a project of who is worth protecting and who is not. The press release announcing Operation Restore Roosevelt emphasized the centrality of the people in the community. One might imagine the Adams administration is talking about the vibrant and diverse working-class residents of Elmhurst, North Corona, and Jackson Heights. However, it’s unclear that they plan to protect Queens’ most marginalized groups. Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul have explicitly stated their willingness to work with ICE to deport anyone they deem criminal. 

An appreciation for the diversity of Queens is incompatible with the increased fear of deportation and stigmatization migrants have reported to Make the Road New York. Revealingly, Small Business Services Commissioner Dynishal Gross said the launch was “…proof that small business owners who have sounded the alarm about activity and conditions along the Roosevelt Avenue corridor, have been heard and are supported.” Local business owners interviewed about the results seem more concerned about the perceived increase in customers who now feel safe returning to the neighborhood. None of that hospitality is extended to the street vendors and sex workers that actually live there. 

With Operation Restore Roosevelt, Adams scapegoats New York’s most vulnerable populations while simultaneously using them as symbols of exploitation. Trafficking victims are conflated with consensual sex workers and neither group is listened to about their needs. In criminalizing sex workers, Adams makes it harder for them to take care of themselves, their families, and loved ones. Arrest records for prostitution make our most stigmatized New Yorkers vulnerable to banking, housing, and employment discrimination. Under New York Penal Law § 230.40, landlords face legal risk for “permitting prostitution” in a property that they own. This is just one part of how criminalization isolates sex workers and pushes them into more dangerous forms of work by threatening everyone from their landlord to their support network. 

It also put sex workers in more desperate and dire financial straits. Sex workers report police presence on their streets leading to decreased earnings, clients not returning, or clients negotiating worse deals to make up for the risk. Sex workers are othered and not seen as fellow community members. For all the hand-wringing around families and children, there is no acknowledgment that many of these sex workers are mothers too. Most heartbreakingly, migrant sex workers are faced with threats of deportation. This operation begs the question: what happens after the cops?

According to the Queens District Attorney’s office, the answer is rehabilitative services. This approach is insufficient and unevenly applied. Under this system, we must first subject sex workers to transphobic harassment and sexual extortion from police officers. After that, they’re offered workforce development programs for lower-paying jobs or funneled into the city’s neglected shelter system. Some sex workers are not offered services at all.

This is a system we pay for, and we’re being robbed. Every tax dollar spent on state troopers and NYPD enforcement is a dollar withheld from our libraries, schools, and housing and health programs. If the goal were to improve our communities or fight sex trafficking, the city would empower everyone by removing the coercive pressure of survival. Operation Restore Roosevelt deflects the anger and fear of other working-class New Yorkers onto disabled people, queer people, or immigrants trying to survive in an increasingly expensive city. If the city wants to change sex work, they need to change sex workers’ circumstances. Despite this, Moya and Adams have expressed interest in continuing Operation Restore Roosevelt.

Adams says he wants to create a clean and safe area that welcomes all New Yorkers. I want the same thing. I treasure that New York City has historically been a beacon for people looking to escape persecution elsewhere, especially because persecution now lurks around every corner. 

Donald Trump was inaugurated this month. We’re now under a presidential administration that is strongly against queer rights, migrant communities, and bodily autonomy. As pressure mounts for vulnerable communities, we have an obligation to end punitive measures like Operation Restore Roosevelt. 

As our country makes it clear we’re not welcome, New York City must live up to the words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

Laura Torlaschi is a Queens-based writer and sex work advocate for DecrimNY.