Prior detainee to Pablo: Stay strong
A FORMER Ground Zero worker who faced imminent deportation a year ago offered a message to detained pizza delivery man Pablo Villavicencio: Don’t lose hope.
Carlos Cardona, 49, said he knows how Villavicencio must feel sitting in a dingy immigration detention center, the same facility where he spent four months awaiting his fate.
A last-minute pardon from Gov. Cuomo in 2017 saved Cardona from being separated from his family.
“I remember sitting in that cell,” said Cardona, who was picked up for a 1990 drug-selling conviction. “Those were dark days. I would not wish that on anybody. My heart breaks for Pablo.”
“I would tell him not to lose hope,” the Colombian native added. “He needs to stay encouraged until the very last minute.”