The immigrant pizza deliveryman arrested by ICE after making a delivery last month to a Brooklyn Army base was released from jail Tuesday night.
Pablo Villavicencio broke down in tears as he walked out of the Hudson County Correctional Facility in Kearny, NJ.
Pablo Villavicencio with his family.Victor Alcorn“I am well … so happy for my wife, my daughters, my lawyers. Thank you! Thank you for everything,” Villavicencio told The Post.
The shaven Villavicencio, wearing a gray T-shirt neatly tucked into a pair of blue jeans, left the Jersey lockup from a carport after a guard gave the thumbs up, shortly before 9 p.m.
The 35-year-old married father of two calmly walked about a hundred feet — thanking guards along the way — before breaking down in tears after seeing his wife, Sandra, and two children, Antonia and Luciana, in the parking lot by a waiting SUV.
The Long Island resident, who became a national rallying cry for reuniting immigrants and their families facing deportation, picked up his two children and embraced his wife before dropping to his knees in tears.
“It’s a very emotional day. This family has been traumatized,” said New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who was on hand for Villavicencio’s release.
“The city puts forward a lot of money every year for legal representation, and on a day like this, we know that every penny is well worth it.”
The 35-year old Ecuadorian undocumented immigrant was freed following an order earlier Tuesday by Manhattan federal Judge Paul Crotty, who said Villavicencio has the right to try to obtain a waiver to kill the 2010 order of removal.
Villavicencio, who lives on Long Island with his American wife and kids, went to the Fort Hamilton Army base back in June to deliver an order of pasta to a sergeant, flashing his city-issued IDNYC card for entry. But once inside, Villavicencio says, another guard demanded more identification. That’s when officials called US Immigration and Customs Enforcement when he came up empty-handed.
