Maya Rajamani

Pizza Delivery Man Detained by ICE Granted Emergency Stay, Legal Aid Society Says

Pablo Villavicencio-Calderon was delivering pizza to Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn on June 1 when military personnel asked him about his immigration status, detained him, and turned him over to ICE

What to Know

  • Pablo Villavicencio-Calderon was detained by ICE after delivering pizza to a military base in Brooklyn
  • A federal judge has granted him an emergency stay until July 20
  • Villavencio-Calderon's wife said her husband could have been deported as soon a Monday without the stay

A man who was detained by ICE after delivering pizza to a military base in Brooklyn has been granted an emergency stay, the Legal Aid Society said.

Pablo Villavicencio-Calderon, 32, was delivering pizza to Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn on June 1 when military personnel asked him about his immigration status, detained him, and turned him over to ICE.

Villavencio-Calderon’s wife, Sandra Chica, told NBC New York she had heard her husband could be deported as soon as Monday, but a federal judge on Saturday granted him an emergency stay until July 20, the Legal Aid Society said.

“Although we are disappointed that Pablo will remain detained, today’s stay is a victory for him and his family, and also for due process and the fair administration of justice,” Gregory Copeland, the supervising attorney of the Immigration Law Unit at The Legal Aid Society said in a statement.

“The court agreed with our argument that Pablo should be afforded a full and fair opportunity to present his case in Federal Court,” he added.

Villavicencio-Calderon, an undocumented immigrant from Ecuador who works for a Queens pizzeria, was questioned about his immigration status and detained when he arrived at Fort Hamilton, Chica said.

“He left the house thinking he [was] going to come back at night, and now he is not with us,” she told NBC New York before the emergency stay was granted.

Chica and Villavicencio-Calderon’s two daughters miss their father, she said.

“They’re asking me where he is, why he is not coming home at night, that they miss him, that they want to play with him,” she said. "Their daddy was taken because of the law of this country, because they didn’t give him the chance to continue his legal process here,"

Chica’s husband applied for a green card in February, but hadn’t heard back yet, she added.

After Villavicencio-Calderon was detained, politicians including City Councilmember Justin Brannan and Gov. Andrew Cuomo took up his cause, with Cuomo calling for a federal investigation into the incident.

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