Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was booed and heckled by her constituents at a heated town hall on Thursday.
AOC was interrupted by angry voters as he presented the benefits of the Green New Deal at an event in Queens.
One of the hecklers, Jonathan David Rinaldi, stood up while AOC was on stage and announced he was challenging Ocasio-Cortez for her congressional seat.
“My name is Jonathan David Rinaldi and I’m running for Congress against AOC, the Green New Deal is a scam,” he shouted.
After becoming increasingly aggressive and rowing with other attendees, the man was escorted out while shouting, “You only represent the illegal aliens.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was booed and heckled by her constituents in a heated town hall on Thursday
Jonathan David Rinaldi stood up while AOC was on stage and announced he was challenging Ocasio-Cortez for her congressional seat
After becoming increasingly aggressive and rowing with other attendees, the man was escorted out while shouting ‘you only represent the illegal aliens’
“They’re giving away the NYCHA apartments, they’re giving illegal aliens $10,000 a day…I want you to debate with me on AOC, debate with me,” he was heard shouting in the video of the meeting.
“Every one of us is being sold out by people who brought illegal immigrants here to vote,” he shouted.
The heckler also shouted about the NYPD’s attacks on migrants last month.
However, he was quickly drowned out by Ocasio-Cortez’s supporters who shouted “AOC, AOC” and clapped their hands.
After the man was removed, AOC addressed the rest of the crowd.
“It’s clear that this community – Astoria, Jackson Heights, also across the Bronx – clearly supports progressive immigration policies that welcome all of our neighbors.”
“We clearly support a path to citizenship, we clearly support ending draconian immigration policies and that is why all of you… support my representation of our community in Congress, because we have had enough.”
Her comments were met with applause, with one woman shouting “thank you.”
AOC is a progressive Democrat who has supported generous migrant policies in New York
“We have seen that the anti-immigrant voices in this country are very, very loud, but they are very few and we need to look around and realize how many of us are here in support of our neighbors and in recognition of the fact that virtually all of us are descendants of immigrants, or indigenous people, or enslaved people,” Ocasio-Cortez added.
The incident comes after a few tense months in New York the city absorbed more than 100,000 migrants last year alone.
In the city’s latest controversial move to crack down on migrants, Adams announced a $53 million program to give prepaid credit cards to immigrant families with children.
Adams defended his new program earlier this year, saying, “So we’re going to save money on delivery, we’re going to save money on people wasting food, and this is a pilot project that we’re going to use to save money.” us $6.7 million per year.”
He had previously said the project would save the city $600,000 a month, or $7.2 million a year.
The Democratic mayor also wanted to counter what he called “misinformation” about the program.
“We don’t give people American Express cards,” Adams said. “We found that with the food delivery service we set up during the emergency, we could find a better way to do this, believing we wanted to save 20 percent of migrant costs.”