According to a new report, one of the Democratic Party’s most progressive lawmakers has seen a major crime spike in the district she represents — more than double the rising crime in surrounding areas. The New York Post analyzed New York Police Department (NYPD) crime data and found, in a report published Saturday, that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) congressional district has seen a 70% increase in major crimes since she headed to Congress in 2019, compared to a 30% increase in crime across New York City as a whole.

Residents of the Bronx and Queens district that Ocasio-Cortez represents faulted the congresswoman, her rhetoric, and her lack of concern for the surging crime rate. “She talks about the whole ‘fighting the oligarchy,’ and that’s what she’s all about — the poor people. And yet most people in her district are fearful, they don’t feel like they can walk out the door without encountering a drug dealer or a purse snatcher or a hooker,” retired police sergeant and National Police Association Spokeswoman Betsy Brantner Smith told the Post.

Prostitution and gang activity have risen dramatically in Ocasio-Cortez’s district, along with violent crime. One resident even complained of a brothel being set up across the street from her house. “I can’t wait to get — pardon my language — the f*** out of here. It makes me so sad that they’ve done that to push me out of my neighborhood. And I’m not the only one. … I could never have a family here,” Guadelupe Alvarez said to the Post. She noted that she had tried to address the crime spike with Ocasio-Cortez at a rare Bronx townhall event but had been ignored and passed off to an aide. “She’s not doing s***. She doesn’t live in the neighborhood, she doesn’t care,” said Alvarez, who previously voted for Ocasio-Cortez.

Ocasio-Cortez has been a vocal supporter of illegal immigration, which has been linked to rising crime rates, especially violent crimes and drug trafficking. In a famous past exchange, the congresswoman once told current border czar Tom Homan that illegal immigrants who claim asylum after illegally entering the U.S. are “not charged with any crime.” Homan fired back, “When you enter the country illegally, it’s a violation of 8 United States Code § 1325.” When Republican City Council candidate Ramses Frias pointed to illegal street vending and prostitution being committed by illegal immigrants in the district, Ocasio-Cortez responded, “What we are seeing here is the result of anti-immigrant policies that deny immigrants proper work permits and vending licenses, and drive them into the shadows of undignified conditions.” Frias commented, “We’ve become sort of this epicenter of crime and prostitution and illegal street vending. It’s taken over many streets.”

The Democratic congresswoman has also been a proponent of “defund the police” policies and extreme leniency in dealing with crime. For example, Ocasio-Cortez has previously criticized New York City Mayor and fellow Democrat Eric Adams for bolstering police presence in the city, reintroducing plainclothes police officers, and permitting the use of solitary confinement, which Ocasio-Cortez called a form of “torture,” at the prison on Rikers Island.

The Manhattan Institute’s director of policing and public safety, Hannah Myers, faulted the congresswoman’s “rhetoric” for a decline in police recruitment in New York City. “Nobody wants to be a police officer, it’s been so villainized,” Meyers said to the Post. She continued, “It’s her district, she’s supposed to be looking out for people there. She has such a myopic focus on race. … You’re not helping the victims of crime by talking about how the system is racist.”

As FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter told The Washington Stand, “I’m sure AOC’s constituents — the hard-working citizens in her district, the ones raising families and running small businesses — will want to know why she’s been raising due process arguments as it relates to deportation orders for MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gang members when their communities, in her district, are suffering from skyrocketing crime. Unfortunately for them, they are likely never going to get an answer. And unfortunately for AOC, crime will likely continue pushing New York City to the right, as it’s been drifting for the past few elections.”

In addition, experts like Jason Johnson, president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, say that the anti-police rhetoric and the defunding of police departments championed by Ocasio-Cortez and other members of the Democratic Party in the wake of the 2020 riots ended up causing an increase in crime.

“My organization, the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, recently published a study [that] looked at in particular was the effect after 2020 — the Ferguson effect, if you will, de-policing,” he explained during “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” last week. “What is the impact when law enforcement officers are essentially intimidated away from engaging in proactive enforcement? We saw a drop of about 40% overall in the 15 cities that we looked at of proactive enforcement as measured by arrests and stops. And at the same time, we saw an increase of 54% in homicides. So there really is a link between the two.”

“And the reason we know that is … in the years since, the business of policing has returned,” Johnson continued. “And we’ve seen an increase in about 37% in those measures of policing proactivity. And we’ve seen a resulting decrease in homicides overall, about 32% in some cities.”