Restaurant manager receives ICE extension
Popular manager of Palm Beach pizzeria fighting deportation.
Javier Gonzalez, a popular Palm Beach pizzeria manager, won a 30-day reprieve on same day he was scheduled for deportation.
Francisco Javier Gonzalez’s ankle monitor was removed and the Palm Beach restaurant manager was given 30 days to contest a reinstated removal order in a meeting with immigration officials Tuesday.
Gonzalez was given the 30-day extension the same day he was supposed to board a plane to Mexico on the orders of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Instead, ICE reversed its orders last week. Officials told Gonzalez to cancel his one-way plane ticket to Mexico after they found several issues with the reinstated order of removal they had issued Gonzalez, which included a paperwork error, according to his lawyer, Richard Hujber.
ICE gave Gonzalez a modified reinstatement of his removal order Tuesday, and his lawyers, Hujber and Rebeca Sanchez-Roig, will have 30 days to contest the reinstatement.
The decision came after nearly two hours of waiting for what was supposed to be a short meeting at the ICE office in Miramar, where Gonzalez’s lawyers nervously paced the waiting room and left voicemails for immigration officials, asking what was taking so long.
Finally, Gonzalez emerged — without the black ankle monitor he was given on June 12. Hujber hugged him.
“You can take it easy tomorrow,” Hujber said.
“Every day we get is a good day,” Sanchez-Roig said.
“Amen,” Gonzalez said. Gonzalez’s removal order stems
from 16 years ago when Gonzalez, now 37, entered the United States from Mexico for the second time using what he thought was a valid visa. Immigration officials told him his visa was not valid, deported him, issued him an expedited order of removal and a five-year ban from entering the county.
Gonzalez and his lawyers say he was never told he was being given a removal order. Gonzalez re-entered the United States before the five years were up and has lived and worked in Palm Beach County since, eventually becoming the manager of Pizza Al Fresco, getting married and fathering three daughters, ages 11, 8 and 6.
Along with contesting the reinstatement of Gonzalez’s removal order Gonzalez was issued Tuesday, Hujber and Sanchez-Roig said they plan to file a motion to rescind Gonzalez’s initial removal order with the Houston Office of Customs and Border Protection.
They are also waiting to hear from a federal court, where they filed a petition last week to request that a court prevent ICE from taking Gonzalez into custody.