Crime & Safety

Man Delivered A Pizza. The Guy Who Got It Called ICE On Him.

The deliveryman, a husband and father, brought a pizza to a guard at an Army base. The guard then called ICE on him.

The delivery man just brought a pizza to a guard at an Army base. Then the guard turned around and called ICE, according to officials and reports. Now he's detained in New Jersey.

Pablo Villavicencio, 35, was arrested after he delivered a pizza to the Fort Hamilton military base on General Lee Avenue in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, on June 1, elected and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said.

A guard called ICE after Villavincencio used a municipal ID card to gain entry into the base, which prompted the guard to quiz the husband and father of two daughters about his immigration status, Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported.

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“In the blink of an eye, life changed for us,” Villavicencio’s wife, Sandra Chica, told El Diario, in a statement translated by Voices Of NY. “There are no words to describe the drama my daughters and I are going through.”

Immigration agents arrived and took Villavincencio — an Ecuadorian citizen — to a detention center in New Jersey, where he now awaits deportation, said ICE spokesperson Rachael Yong Yow.

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Villavincencio is “an ICE fugitive” because he did not leave the United States after an immigration judge ordered him to leave voluntarily in March 2010, according to Yong Yow.

Elected officials and advocates have since rallied around the family they say were victims of an unjust immigration system.

“It is unimaginable that [this man] went from delivery to deportation,” said Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams at a press conference Wednesday. “And not because he did something hurtful. Because he delivered a pizza.”

“C'mon,” tweeted Bay Ridge city councilman Justin Brannan. “He was a pizza delivery guy.”

“Immigration system is completely broken.”

But New York State Senator Marty Golden showed support for the army guard in a statement released on Twitter.

“I would expect nothing less from the Fort Hamilton Commander and its dedicated personnel who have committed their lives to protecting our citizens and country,” he wrote.

A GoFundMe campaign has been set up for Villavincencio’s family and a protest rally is slated to take place at 6 p.m. outside the Bay Ridge army base.

“We are outraged by the fact that an agency whose job is to keep us ‘safe’ would directly contribute to harming a fellow human being who was simply doing his job,” protest organizers wrote on Facebook.

“When someone is unjustly and immorally detained, especially because of a government agency, it requires a strong community response.”

With reporting by Kathleen Culliton


Photo courtesy of GoFundMe.com, a Patch media partner

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