BY JACK DELANEY | jdelaney@queensledger.com
Campaigning is a “constant thing,” says Rep. Grace Meng. It’s a mode politicians must inhabit whether the next election is two years, or two months, away.
But for more than a decade, Meng herself has also been a constant in Queens. Now in her seventh term in Congress, the Elmhurst-born lawmaker has worked since 2012 with four mayors and three presidents, representing a district (NY-6) that stretches from Woodside in the west to Alley Pond Park in the east.
Aside from two progressive challengers in 2020 whose bids fizzled, Meng has not faced a competitive primary as an incumbent — until now.
Chuck Park, a former foreign service officer under Obama who later worked for the NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC), launched his campaign to unseat Meng last August, after a mother and six-year-old girl from Elmhurst were detained by ICE and, within a day, sent to a compound in Texas.
Park claimed Meng’s office told him via email that the family needed to fill out a form before anything else could be done, characterizing her response as “lacking urgency.”
For her part, Meng maintains that her team didn’t provide Park with more details because he wasn’t affiliated with the family or their legal team. In fact, she says, her staff was in close contact with the family’s lawyers from the outset.
During a recent roundtable interview at the Ledger’s offices in Sunnyside, Meng contested Park’s claims that she has shied away from holding ICE accountable.
“The way that it is right now should be dismantled,” she said. “It needs extreme and massive reform.”
In May, Meng introduced a bill that would allow immigrants to complete routine check-ins online, potentially reducing the risk of detentions.
Meng also pointed to her advocacy for Aissatou Diallo, a 55-year-old constituent who was detained by ICE at LaGuardia in November. After being held for weeks at facilities in Texas, Louisiana, and New Jersey, a judge finally ruled that Diallo was a legal resident and mandated her release.
Regardless, Meng welcomes the competition from Park.
“A lot more people become engaged when there is a primary,” she said. “So I don’t view it as anything negative.”
New York’s 6th Congressional District — where a plurality of voters are Asian-American — saw one of the largest swings in the country during the 2024 presidential election, with a 23-point jump in support for now-President Trump.
But Meng, who describes herself as “a progressive champion in a purple district,” has highlighted her efforts to stymie Trump’s agenda in D.C.
The chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, Meng also holds an influential post on the House Committee on Appropriations, which controls over $1.6 billion in federal spending. If Democrats win back control of the House in November, Meng would be poised to chair one of 12 powerful subcommittees.
A key concern for Meng and her colleagues has been saving DEI-related programs from the chopping block. Republican members of the committee often use simple Google searches to axe initiatives that mention “diversity;” instead of funding a small business initiative at Diversity Plaza in Jackson Heights, Meng successfully cleared “a streetscape project on 37th Avenue.”
Alongside the appropriations committee, Meng, who has two sons, says “it’s really important to me that we are centering issues that affect women and children” — particularly in a House that’s still 71% male. Meng spearheaded the Menstrual Equality for All Act, which requires schools and federal buildings to provide free menstrual products, and recently helped bankroll the construction of a childcare center at Queensborough Community College.
Meng’s legislative record runs the gamut of banning toxic food dyes, supporting nonprofits that tackle hate crimes, and cracking down on SNAP fraud. Locally, she has boosted the proposed QueensWay park and underwritten outdoor dining set-ups for 60 restaurants in her district, among a laundry list of community-oriented projects.
But this year’s primary on June 23 could hinge upon a single foreign policy issue that’s dominated the campaign trail: military aid to Israel.
That dynamic isn’t new to Meng. Originally a public interest lawyer, she ran unsuccessfully for the City Council before embarking on two terms in the state Assembly.
Then came the 2012 battle for Congress, a three-way race — Meng versus Daniel J. Halloran III and fellow Assemblymember Rory Lancman — that the New York Times referred to at the time as “Israelapalooza,” with Lancman turning the campaign into a referendum on the candidates’ support for Israel.
Meng, a graduate of Yeshiva University’s law school, assembled a coalition of Jewish allies and pushed back. Mark Weprin, the powerful Democrat who had just lost to Turner, promised she would be “the most visible advocate for the state of Israel that we’ve had in Washington for a long time.”
Weprin’s words proved true. Meng has consistently approved military aid to Israel while backing a two-state solution, a stance that has endeared her to many local Jewish nonprofits yet alienated some constituents.
At a town hall in January of 2024, for example, more than 100 residents called on Meng to support a ceasefire in Gaza, and criticized her for allegedly taking over $900,000 in campaign contributions from pro-Israel Super PACs across her career.
With Park, who has joined many in the city’s progressive wing in calling the conflict a “genocide,” Meng is contending with Lancman’s inverse — if in 2012 she was portrayed as too much of a dove, her opponent in 2026 has attracted a social media following by branding her a hawk.
In an interview last week, Meng aimed for a middle ground. “What Israel has done under Netanyahu is something that a lot of people are upset about, even many pro-Israel politicians,” she said.
“But,” she qualified, “you have to realize that in my district, which has one of the highest Jewish populations in the country, a lot of them have family in Israel. So when we’re talking about providing aid to programs like Iron Dome, it literally prevents their families from getting hurt or killed.” (Per the Council on Foreign Relations, Israel — which the UN has accused of war crimes — uses US arms for both defensive and offensive operations.)
Despite her position on Israel, Meng enjoys broad support from progressive leaders. Her endorsements in this cycle include veteran politicians — state Attorney General Letitia James, state Sen. Mike Giannaris, and Rep. Nydia Velazquez — as well as powerful unions like the AFL-CIO.
As Meng seeks an eighth term in Congress, she continues to be motivated by a desire to improve the lives of her constituents.“People are angry and frustrated right now,” she said. “Depending on where they live and who they know, they may be literally watching their neighbors get kidnapped.”
While Meng’s resolve remains unshaken, she doesn’t sugarcoat the stakes of the upcoming midterms. “Mentally, it’s a 24-hour job, right? I wake up in the middle of the night and I’m emailing or writing a reminder to myself. Half of the horrendous news comes out on a Friday evening,” she explained. “It’s almost like 911 first responders — we’re in a political pandemic right now, and you just have to stand ready.”
