Pizza mystery
Deliveryman’s lawyers put heat on Army
Attorneys for the pizza deliveryman detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at Fort Hamilton Army Base have filed an open records request for the background check form he swears he didn’t sign.
Pablo Villavicencio says he never filled out the document that resulted in military police discovering a 2009 deportation order against him. The Army base officers contacted ICE and the 35-year-old from Ecuador was taken into custody. Villavicencio, a married father of two girls, remains in detention in New Jersey.
His attorneys at the Legal Aid Society filed a Freedom of Information Law request for the waiver on June 12. If the document doesn’t exist, his attorneys will argue he was racially profiled at the gate while delivering pizzas. He’d never had to fill out a form during previous deliveries, he says.
“If they don’t have it, then we have to question what valid reasons did they have to perform this level of interrogation — without his consent perform this background check?” Jennifer Williams, an attorney with Legal Aid’s immigration law unit, said.
A spokeswoman for Fort Hamilton declined to respond to questions regarding the waiver and referred the Daily News to a previous statement.
“Upon signing a waiver permitting a background check, Department of the Army Access Control standard for all visitors, an active Immigration and Customs Enforcement warrant was discovered on file,” the Brooklyn base previously said.
"Commanders are authorized to take reasonably necessary and lawful measures to maintain law and order and protect installation personnel and property.”
The base’s website says a background check is required for all visitors.
Villavicencio remains in good spirits, despite missing his family, trouble sleeping and bad food at Hudson County Correctional Facility, Williams said.
“He says ‘I love this country, I want to be here and see my kids,’ ” she said.
“His positivity fuels us.”