NEW YORK: A judge on Tuesday ordered the immediate release of an Ecuadorean immigrant who was held for deportation after he delivered pizza to a Brooklyn Army installation.
“Although he stayed in the United States unlawfully and is currently subject to a final order of removal, he has otherwise been a model citizen,” US District Judge Paul Crotty wrote of Pablo Villavicencio.
The Manhattan judge said Villavicencio, who was being held at a New Jersey lockup, can remain in the United States while he exhausts his right to try to gain legal status. Villavicencio applied to stay in the US after he married a US citizen, with whom he has two young girls.
The judge cited those children and said they are US citizens.
“He has no criminal history,” the judge wrote. “He has paid his taxes. And he has worked diligently to provide for his family.”
The US government, which had wanted the case moved from New York to New Jersey, did not immediately comment on the judge’s action.
Attorney Gregory Copeland, representing Villavicencio, said his lawyers expected him to be released Tuesday night. Villavicencio’s wife said she was home in Hempstead waiting for a car to take her to the detention center, where she would meet with him and lawyers.
Adriene Holder, the attorney-in-charge of the civil practice at the Legal Aid Society, said the rule of “law, humanity and morality” prevailed and the Villavicencio family has “finally received a crucial measure of relief from their 53-day nightmare.”
“This decision should serve as a rebuke against the Trump Administration and its merciless crusade to tear families apart,” Holder said in a statement.
The judge ruled after hearing arguments earlier Tuesday, when he put a government lawyer on the spot over the effort by immigration authorities to enforce a 2010 deportation order. He questioned the need to detain and quickly deport Villavicencio, who’s 35 years old.
“Well, the powerful are doing what they want, and the poor are suffering what they must,” the judge said after hearing Assistant US Attorney Joseph Cordaro defend the government’s actions.
“I mean, is there any concept of justice here or are we just doing this because we want to?” the judge asked. “Why do we want to enforce the order? It makes no difference in terms of the larger issues facing the country.”
Cordaro argued for the case to be transferred to New Jersey because Villavicencio is detained there. He said legal precedent dictated that New Jersey was the proper venue, an argument the judge rejected.
Cordaro said Villavicencio would still be able to pursue his application to become a legal US resident after he is deported.
The case has attracted widespread attention amid a crackdown by the administration of President Donald Trump on illegal immigration. Trump, a Republican, has said his policies are designed to keep the country safe.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, said the federal government has “cruelly” kept Villavicencio from his wife, Sandra Chica, and two daughters “for no legitimate reason.”
Villavicencio was arrested on June 1 while making a delivery to the garrison in Fort Hamilton. When he arrived at Fort Hamilton, guards requested identification, and he produced a city identification card. A background check showed he had been ordered to leave the United States in 2010 but stayed.
Villavicencio’s two girls, ages 2 and 4, played with toys on Tuesday as courtroom spectators around them observed the legal arguments. Villavicencio was not in court.
Another judge had already temporarily blocked his deportation.
Judge: Release immigrant held after Army base pizza delivery
Judge: Release immigrant held after Army base pizza delivery
- A federal judge wants to know if the U.S. government has "any concept of justice" in mind for an Ecuadorean immigrant detained while delivering pizza to a Brooklyn Army installation
- Judge Paul Crotty on Tuesday said Pablo Villavicencio must be immediately released from a New Jersey lockup and can remain in the United States
Nigeria signals more strikes likely in ‘joint’ US operations
- Nigeria on Friday signalled more strikes against jihadist groups were expected after a Christmas Day bombardment by US forces against militants in the north of the country
LAGOS: Nigeria on Friday signalled more strikes against jihadist groups were expected after a Christmas Day bombardment by US forces against militants in the north of the country.
The west African country faces multiple interlinked security crises in its north, where jihadists have been waging an insurgency in the northeast since 2009 and armed “bandit” gangs raid villages and stage kidnappings in the northwest.
The US strikes come after Abuja and Washington were locked in a diplomatic dispute over what Trump characterised as the mass killing of Christians amid Nigeria’s myriad armed conflicts.
Washington’s framing of the violence as amounting to Christian “persecution” is rejected by the Nigerian government and independent analysts, but has nonetheless resulted in increased security coordination.
“It’s Nigeria that provided the intelligence,” the country’s foreign minister, Yusuf Tuggar, told broadcaster Channels TV, saying he was on the phone with US State Secretary Marco Rubio ahead of the bombardment.
Asked if there would be more strikes, Tuggar said: “It is an ongoing thing, and we are working with the US. We are working with other countries as well.”
Targets unclear
The Department of Defense’s US Africa Command, using an acronym for the Daesh group, said “multiple Daesh terrorists” were killed in an attack in the northwestern state of Sokoto.
US defense officials later posted video of what appeared to be the nighttime launch of a missile from the deck of a battleship flying the US flag.
Which of Nigeria’s myriad armed groups were targeted remains unclear.
Nigeria’s jihadist groups are mostly concentrated in the northeast of the country, but have made inroads into the northwest.
Researchers have recently linked some members from an armed group known as Lakurawa — the main jihadist group located in Sokoto State — to Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP), which is mostly active in neighboring Niger and Mali.
Other analysts have disputed those links, though research on Lakurawa is complicated as the term has been used to describe various armed fighters in the northwest.
Those described as Lakurawa also reportedly have links to Al-Qaeda affiliated group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), a rival group to ISSP.
While Abuja has welcomed the strikes, “I think Trump would not have accepted a ‘No’ from Nigeria,” said Malik Samuel, an Abuja-based researcher for Good Governance Africa, an NGO.
Amid the diplomatic pressure, Nigerian authorities are keen to be seen as cooperating with the US, Samuel told AFP, even though “both the perpetrators and the victims in the northwest are overwhelmingly Muslim.”
Tuggar said that Nigerian President Bola Tinubu “gave the go-ahead” for the strikes.
The foreign minister added: “It must be made clear that it is a joint operation, and it is not targeting any religion nor simply in the name of one religion or the other.”
