Immigrant Pizza Man's Family Demands ICE Let Dad Come Home

DOWNTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — Pablo Villavicencio's two daughters wondered why their dad didn't come home on Father's Day to get his gift. Instead of spending the day with him, his wife said, the girls played him music while he listened on the phone at the New Jersey detention center where immigration officials have held him since his June 1 arrest at a Brooklyn Army base where he was delivering pizza.

"Every day I have to answer them why daddy's not at home, and now I don't even know what to tell them," his wife, Sandra Chica, said at a Monday news conference with the couple's daughters: Antonia, who is almost 3, and Luciana, almost 4.

Villavicencio has remained locked up despite a federal judge sparing him from deportation to Ecuador on June 9. Now, his wife and lawyers are demanding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement let him come home to his Long Island family.

Villavicencio's Legal Aid Society attorneys submitted a formal request for his release Monday, arguing that he should be freed while the case against his deportation proceeds in federal court.

On top of the humanitarian reasons for releasing him, the request argues there's no legal need to detain Villavicencio while his case is pending. He is not a flight risk and poses no danger to the community or national security, his lawyers say.

"Yesterday was Father's Day, and these children were robbed of this holiday because of ICE's cruel, inhumane, unjust decision to detain him," said Jennifer Williams, the deputy attorney-in-charge of Legal Aid's Immigration Law Unit. "His detention is causing immense heartache, pain, punishment on this family. His prolonged detention is unwarranted under these circumstances."

Villavicencio's arrest at the Fort Hamilton Army base in Bay Ridge is the latest case to spark outrage among immigrant-rights activists and elected officials.

A guard at the base, where Villavicencio had delivered pizza in the past without incident, called ICE after a background check revealed the agency had a warrant out for his arrest. ICE has said he was a "fugitive" because he did not leave the country after a judge first ordered him to in 2010.

ICE spokeswoman Rachael Yong Yow said the request for Villavicencio's release would "be reviewed and the decision will be forwarded to the attorney."

Villavicencio is one of thousands of immigrant parents whom ICE has separated from their children under President Donald Trump, lawmakers and advocates said.

The Trump administration is facing criticism for its policy of separately detaining kids and adults at the nation's southern border, even reportedly holding children in cages with foil sheets as blankets.

The separations are "not just happening at the border — it's happening here in our own neighborhoods," said City Councilman Carlos Menchaca (D-Brooklyn).

Menchaca and other Council members submitted their own letter demanding ICE release Villavicencio. Among them was Speaker Corey Johnson, who said he could relate to the immigrant family's pain — Johnson's father left him and his mother when he was growing up.

"Children in this city and in this country should not have to live in fear of the federal government taking their parents away from them," Johnson said. "That is not who we are, and that is not the American way."

A Manhattan federal judge will hear arguments July 24 on whether Villavicencio should be allowed to stay in the U.S. He has legal avenues to change his immigration status, Williams said.

Menchaca held up Luciana to address a gather scrum of reporters in Spanish outside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building. While the government officials and lawyers squabble over her dad's case, the girl just wants him to come home.

"I wish to see you here. Come to the house," she said, according to Menchaca's translation of her speech.

"Just be with us," she added.

(Lead image: Pablo Villavicencio's wife, Sandra Chica, and his two daughters appear at a Monday news conference demanding his release. Photo by Noah Manskar/Patch)