By David Paiz-Torres, Asad Jung and Mia Hollie

When Victoria Von Blaque was a fashion student at Nassau Community College, a friend introduced her to sex work. Having always been a highly sexual person, sex work provided Von Blaque an opportunity to make money while doing something she enjoyed. It also provided her with the resources to transition comfortably outside her home, and offered her an occupation when the internship she was at refused to hire her due to her being visibly transgender.

“I think sex work chose me,” said Von Blaque.

Although Von Blaque mainly does digital sex work, as a new sex worker she frequented Roosevelt Avenue and occasionally found clients there. And as a Black, trans, gender nonconforming person, it was one of the few places she felt safe. “This area was never unsafe for marginalized communities,” said Von Blaque.

However, ever since Mayor Eric Adams launched “Operation Restore Roosevelt,” which seeks to increase policing and raids on the street to target sex work and street vending, the area doesn’t offer the same protection it used to, said Von Blaque.

What is Operation Restore Roosevelt?

“Operation Restore Roosevelt” is a 90-day-operation launched by the Mayor’s office to target sex work and illegal street vending along Roosevelt Avenue. While many residents of the area are in support of the operation, sex workers and advocates have criticized it, saying it will target already vulnerable transgender and immigrant communities.

That’s why Trujillo was alarmed by Mayor Eric Adams’ announcement in October that his administration would launch Operation Restore Roosevelt, a three-month crackdown on illegal business activities along a 30-block stretch of Roosevelt Avenue.

Through the operation, the NYPD has been tasked with addressing criminal offenses, including sex work, retail theft, the sale of stolen goods and the operation of illegal businesses, such as brothels and unlicensed street vending.

The police department may also make referrals to other city agencies on behalf of individuals who officers identify as needing assistance, which may include housing or medical care.

The announcement of the operation fell on the heels of a monthslong campaign by some community members to improve the quality of life in the Elmhurst, Corona and Jackson Heights neighborhoods of Queens.

“This road should be the pride of our city, but for too long it has been plagued by persistent public safety and quality-of-life issues,” Adams said during the press conference where he first made the announcement. “We won’t allow this to continue any longer.”

This year, nearly 30% of all the city’s arrests related to the sex trades – including solicitation – occurred on Roosevelt Avenue.

Though the operation is supposed to mitigate illegal business activities, business owner Yamuna Shreshta said that it has produced unfavorable outcomes for her restaurant Nepali Bhanchha Ghar. Drivers who deliver groceries to her restaurant have been receiving street parking violation tickets more often, she said.

“When the business is [at its] peak, we cannot leave the customer, go and get the groceries,” said Neha Rana, an employee at the restaurant who translated for Shreshta. “So [by] that time, they place a ticket.”

However, for Expomoda Boutique, a clothing store on Roosevelt Avenue, the operation has had the opposite effect. Prior to the crackdown, it was experiencing a decline in sales, but now, it’s slowly regaining longtime customers, according to Morelia Campos, an employee at the boutique for nine years.

“It’s gotten better,” she said, adding,“They stopped coming because there was a lot of prostitution, they were afraid of being robbed … but now when longtime customers return, they are surprised with how much cleaner and safer it is.”

But fewer sex workers on the street could also mean that the trade is being forced further underground, said Trujillo. When sex workers are pushed into more precarious work settings, it makes it more difficult for them to screen clients and negotiate using protection, he said.

The NYPD releases arrest data on a quarterly basis, so the number of sex workers arrested as a result of this operation won’t be known until early 2025 – but according to the latest data, 186 people were arrested on prostitution charges between 2021-2024.

A Long History of Sex Work in Queens

When a friend introduced Victoria Von Blaque to sex work, the then-college student became instantly intrigued. She had already experienced workplace discrimination due to her gender identity as a Black trans woman. And despite having a close relationship with her mother, Von Blaque sought to move out so that she could complete her gender transition in comfort.

“I think sex work chose me,” she said.

While Von Blaque has mainly engaged in digital sex work since then, as a newcomer to the trade, she frequented Roosevelt Avenue and occasionally found clients there. But the city’s latest law enforcement initiative has threatened the sense of safety and community that the street once provided to her, she said.

“This area was never unsafe for marginalized communities,” Von Blaque said.

Queens’ sex trade industry took root in the borough decades ago and has remained an ever-present part of the community since, particularly in the borough’s Flushing and Jackson Heights neighborhoods.

Asian and Latino residents make up over half of the population in Flushing and Jackson Heights, respectively. Most residents in these neighborhoods are also immigrants. Yves Tong Nguyen, a cultural worker at the Flushing-based advocacy group Red Canary Song, said that though she doesn’t believe recent migration to the city has caused an uptick in sex work, the industry is still largely driven by residents’ socio-economic needs.

“Migrants in the past [have] come here because they are from destabilized countries where they've been dispossessed from land, from resources, opportunities,” she said. “Sex work offers an opportunity for people to make more money more quickly when they don't have as many opportunities.”

The same could be applied to LGBT individuals who enter the trade, said Trujillo. While some are coerced into the profession, or choose to do it because they see it as a viable career path, “there's the reason that most people do it, [which is] circumstance,” he said. “Meaning, ‘I'm a trans Latina person. I am excluded from other jobs because of who I am.’”

New York State law defines prostitution, or sex work, as the act of engaging in sex in exchange for a fee, a crime punishable by up to three months in jail. Punishment for someone who patronizes a sex worker, on the other hand, ranges from one year in jail to life in prison.

Enforcement of these laws became acutely significant during the nineties. Between 1991 and 1995, more than 150 brothels had been shut down and over 1,000 people were arrested for sex trade-related activity in the borough, former executive assistant to the district attorney for special prosecutions Jesse Sligh told the New York Daily News in 1995.

Arrests for all sex work-related offenses have since dropped dramatically. About 250 arrests have been made this year – 41 targeting sex workers with prostitution charges – according to NYPD data, representing a 45% decrease in the number of annual sex work-related arrests as compared to just five years ago.

Queens residents have also historically come together to mitigate sex work in the area, whether it be independently or in collaboration with city and state officials.

The Quality of Life Coalition, for example, conducted a campaign in 1995 to take down brothels in Flushing. The coalition – made up of community groups, legislators and faith leaders – credited itself with the takedown of at least twelve brothels.

Over the past few months, a similar grassroots organization called Let’s Improve Roosevelt Ave has taken root in the borough. The organization, which was created by author and former politician R.A. Ramirez-Baez, has brought hundreds of community members together to rally against acts that they say destroy Queens’ quality of life.

When it comes to sex work, Ramirez-Baez said that he does not take issue with the profession as a whole, but the fact that it exists within the confines of his community. He noted Nevada’s sex work laws, which allow sex work so long as the work takes place inside licensed brothels.

“Do whatever you want with your body — it’s your body,” he said. “But once you do whatever you do [near] schools, kids, children, it’s totally different.”

How Policing Sex Trafficking Affects Consensual Sex Workers

The mayor’s office and supporters of Operation Restore Roosevelt have also claimed that the operation will decrease the amount of sex trafficking in the area.

But enforcement of these laws can actually drive sex trafficking further underground Trujillo said. This is because sex trafficking victims are often criminalized in the same way as those doing consensual sex work, he said.

“Our criminal legal system is full of criminalized survivors of sex trafficking,” he said.

The reality of sex trafficking is also very different from the popular notion of it, said Tong Nguyen. Instead, victims of sex trafficking are often trafficked by people they know or coerced with false expectations or promises, she said.

“It’s not so much that people are being kidnapped off of the street and held against their will,” she said.

Although police claim the crackdown on Roosevelt Avenue is necessary to combat sex trafficking, arrest data shows that almost all sex work related arrests in Queens concern consensual sex work, according to a report by the Urban Justice Center. Between 2006 and 2021, there were 15,190 prostitution-related arrests in Queens, with only 57 sex trafficking charges.

Sex workers advocates believe that the decriminalization of sex work is the only real solution to decreasing sex trafficking. According to the American Medical Association Journal of Ethics, decriminalization can motivate a more prominent recognition of sex workers’ human rights, and thus is a critical mechanism for decreasing trafficking.

City Council Member Tiffany Caban, whose district covers portions of where Operation Restore Roosevelt is taking place, said that engaging sex workers rather than criminalizing their work would help mitigate sex trafficking.

“We can't really target it effectively because the people who you rely on to be able to access those traffickers are the very people that you're criminalizing who aren't going to be inclined to cooperate,” she said.

What's Next for Roosevelt Avenue?

With a 90-day expiration date, Operation Restore Roosevelt will likely end sometime in mid-January. But efforts to deport migrants may still have an impact on the street, particularly for sex workers who may be undocumented.

While the city’s Democratic mayor has never explicitly spoken about deporting sex workers, he recently announced that he had reached out to future border czar Tom Homan about ways to deport migrants who have committed crimes.

“Those who are here committing crimes – robberies, shooting at police officers, raping innocent people – have been a harm to our country,” he said at a press conference in early December. “I want to sit down and hear the plan on how we’re going to address them.”

City Council Member Tiffany Caban, who previously ran for Queens district attorney on a campaign that opposed prosecuting crimes related to the sex trades, said “people are terrified.”

“We are already in dire straits because of the conditions that exist under this administration, and it's going to get worse under this presidency,” she said.

Caban is the sponsor of a pro-sex work bill currently before the Committee on Civil and Human Rights. The bill, if passed, would prohibit housing discrimination and child services intervention based solely on a person’s status as a sex worker. It would also create a sex worker opportunity program, which would enable the Mayor’s Office of Equity and Social Justice to provide grants to community organizations that work directly with sex workers.

“We're asking people to make really hard, difficult choices,” Caban said in reference to why people choose to engage in sex work. “And as a government, our responsibility is to create the conditions where every single person can thrive, not punish people for our own governmental systemic failures.”