Thirty-five-year-old, Pablo Villavicencio, was detained after delivering a pizza to the Fort Hamilton army base in Brooklyn.
Villavicencio is an immigrant from the country of Ecuador.
When he went to the Fort Hamilton base to deliver the pizza, he was asked for proof of citizenship. He was unable to produce these documents and so a military police officer called Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Villavicencio.
Villavicencio was taken into custody by ICE agents and was then transferred to New Jersey. He is currently awaiting deportation.
Justin Brannan, the Bay Ridge Councilman, gave a press conference right outside Fort Hamilton after the incident. He said, “the arrest of Pablo with a municipal ID is sending shockwaves throughout the community.” Eric Adams, President of the Brooklyn Borough, said that because New York is supposed to be a sanctuary city, “Delivery to detention is unimaginable.”
After the news broke of what happened at Fort Hamilton to Pablo Villavicencio, many restaurants around the area have decided to boycott the military base.
Rafi Cohen works with Orders2.me. Orders2.me manages online ordering websites for lots of the restaurants in nearby neighborhoods, such as Dyker Heights, Sunset Park, and Bensonhurst.
According to Cohen, Orders2.me has been getting many calls since Villavicencio being taken into custody from owners and managers of nearby restaurants that are refusing to deliver to the base any longer.
Cohen said that he “can’t comment or list any specific restaurants…I can say that we have received several calls…with request to…remove the Fort Hamilton Army Base from their delivery zones.” He continued, “They will no longer be delivering food there.”
The boycott stems from a place of wanting to protect their own employees. At Goustaro deli in Bay Ridge, a cashier worker said, “We don’t need a problem with them…we don’t tell our guys to go in there.”
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