{"id":216,"date":"2026-06-24T17:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T17:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanhousingtransition.com\/?p=216"},"modified":"2026-06-24T17:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T17:40:10","slug":"n-y-socialist-called-for-eliminating-police-prisons-and-israel-now-shes-likely-headed-to-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanhousingtransition.com\/?p=216","title":{"rendered":"N.Y. Socialist Called for Eliminating Police, Prisons, and Israel. Now, She\u2019s Likely Headed to Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even by the standards of the modern Democratic party, Harlem community organizer Darializa Avila Chevalier is extreme. <\/span><\/p>\n

Read more Mamdani-Backed Socialists Sweep New York House Primaries<\/a><\/p>\n

Chevalier, who won the Democratic primary for New York\u2019s 13th congressional district on Tuesday, has advocated seizing the means of production, abolishing police, prisons, and borders, and supports the destruction of the state of Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Avila Chevalier prevailed over incumbent Representative Adriano Espaillat, after receiving the support of\u00a0<\/span>New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Avila Chevalier was one of two New York House candidates to be endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America; Claire Valdez, the second, also won her primary election on Tuesday night. Given the partisan make-up of New York City, Valdez and Chevalier are all but guaranteed to win their general elections in November and head to D.C.<\/span><\/p>\n

While Espaillat is the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and a fixture in New York City Democratic circles<\/span>, <\/span><\/i>Avila Chevalier is a first-time candidate who was well known in Harlem for her pro-Palestinian activism, which she\u2019s given voice to in extreme terms on social media.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

CNN reported last month that <\/span>Avila Chevalier\u2019s now-deleted account on X included \u201cthousands of posts and reposts expressing support for abolishing police, prisons and borders, as well as seizing private property and nationalizing major industries and calling into question Israel\u2019s right to exist.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Her biography on the platform previously included the phrase \u201chow communist of you\u201d and the hashtags \u201c#BlackLivesMatter\u201d and \u201c#FreePalestine,\u201d while her location was tagged as \u201cOccupied Lenape Land.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Several of Avila Chevalier\u2019s posts showed a penchant for communism. In April 2020, she wrote that while most of the political theory she had read was communist, \u201cthe pyromania associated with anarchism is very intriguing to me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSeize the means of production,\u201d she <\/span>wrote<\/span> in 2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

She was also adamant about completely abolishing the police, responding with malice toward users who tried to \u201cwater down\u201d the movement.<\/p>\n

When one user\u00a0asked what a better slogan would be than \u201cdefund the police,\u201d Avila Chevalier replied, <\/span>\u201cF*** you. We\u2019re gonna defund and abolish. You don\u2019t get to water down our movements.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She also pushed back against claims that\u00a0abolishing police meant ending policing only \u201cas we know it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo. It means ending policing full stop. Period. No more police at all ever,\u201d she wrote.<\/span><\/p>\n

She also <\/span>reposted<\/span> a message that read, \u201cIn New York they don\u2019t say \u2018I love you,\u2019 they say \u2018NYPD suck my d***\u2019 and I think that\u2019s beautiful.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She expressed support for a \u201cworld without borders\u201d or prisons or police, calling the idea \u201cpossible, necessary, and the only moral way forward\u201d in September 2021. That same month, she said \u201call deportation is wrong.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Avila Chevalier also suggested in 2020 that \u201cIsrael doesn\u2019t exist!\u201d and offered a few choice words for the Democratic Party when progressive <\/span>Bernie Sanders ended his 2020 presidential campaign. She also wrote \u201cF*** Kamala Harris\u201d in 2021, after the then-vice president told\u00a0<\/span>Guatemalan migrants not to come to the United States illegally.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mamdani, for his part, said he wasn\u2019t aware of her past comments when he endorsed her, but he did not pull his endorsement nonetheless.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more Leader of Antifa Group Convicted in Texas ICE Facility Attack Sentenced to 100 Years in Prison<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIn Congress, she\u2019ll take on corporate greed, bad landlords, and D.C.\u2019s broken political system. At a time when power is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, Darializa will fight in Congress for New York City\u2019s working families. She\u2019s the champion we need for a city New Yorkers can actually afford,\u201d Mamdani told CNN.<\/span><\/p>\n

Avila Chevalier, now a 32-year-old investigator at a public defender\u2019s office in New York City and a doctoral student in sociology at the City University of New York studying \u201cthe ways Black immigrants from Latin America are impacted by the US criminal system and deportation,\u201d\u00a0<\/span>told the outlet the posts do not reflect who she is today.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy opponent wants to live in the past. He is re-litigating social media posts from half a decade ago, and continuing to champion an outdated politics that fails to serve our people,\u201d Avila Chevalier said. \u201cI have grown considerably since in the years since these tweets, and I am focused on our community and our community\u2019s future.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And yet as recently as 2023, she attended\u00a0<\/span>an \u201cAll Out for Palestine,\u201d just one day after Hamas murdered 1,200 Israelis. Footage of the protest obtained by the\u00a0Times of Israel\u00a0<\/em>showed Avila Chevalier <\/span>wearing a keffiyeh beside a protester with a sign reading \u201cZionism is genocide.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Some demonstrators at the event chanted \u201c700,\u201d referring to the then-known Israeli death toll, while others made throat-slitting gestures, made obscene gestures toward Jewish counter-protesters, and shouted \u201cGlobalize the Intifada,\u201d according to the Combat Antisemitism Movement.<\/span><\/p>\n

Avila Chevalier became involved in pro-Palestinian activism during her time at Columbia, where she joined Students for Justice in Palestine and helped found Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) in 2016. Avila Chevalier worked with CUAD as an alumna in 2024 to organize Columbia\u2019s pro-Palestinian encampment.<\/span><\/p>\n

CUAD previously wrote in a letter to university leadership clarifying its belief that \u201cdivestment is not an incrementalist goal.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTrue divestment,\u201d the student activists wrote, \u201cnecessitates nothing short of the total collapse of the university structure and American empire itself. It is not possible for imperial spoils to remain so heavily concentrated in the metropole and its high-cultural repositories without the continuous suppression of all populations that resist the empire\u2019s expansion; to divest from this is to undermine and eradicate America as we know it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group further advocated for translating the \u201cresilience\u201d of the Palestinian people in Gaza \u201cto unrest and violence in America.\u201d<\/p>\n

And in responding to protests in Bangladesh in 2024, the coalition advocated for the \u201ctotal eradication\u201d of Western civilization.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization,\u201d CUAD said in an Instagram <\/span>post<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

But while Avila Chevalier claims to have moved on from some of her most controversial social media takes, her campaign website still advanced a number of radical positions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe must end the genocide and occupation in Palestine, divest from Israeli apartheid, stop all funding to the Israeli government, and reinvest in us,\u201d her website reads. She further advocates for abolishing ICE and increasing affordable housing in New York City.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more Al Jazeera Journalist Mourned by Mamdani Was Also Hamas Sniper, IDF Says<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chevalier, who won her primary on Tuesday, has called for seizing the means of production and believes ‘Israel doesn’t exist.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":215,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nN.Y. Socialist Called for Eliminating Police, Prisons, and Israel. Now, She\u2019s Likely Headed to Congress - American Housing Transition<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanhousingtransition.com\/?p=216\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"N.Y. 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