Aliya Gomez, 6, could barely get out the words to describe how much she misses her father, 37-year-old Julio Patricio Gomez.

“I feel sad because I can’t see my dad. We went to Chuck E. Cheese together, or we went to soccer together and we went to Legoland together. I always wanted to go to Legoland before and he took me,” Aliya Gomez said.

Julio Patricio Gomez is at risk of deportation. On Oct. 14, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers took him into custody.

He’s currently at a detention center in Pennsylvania.  

Make the Road NY, a nonprofit organization that helps immigrant and working-class New Yorkers, says Gomez came from Ecuador and crossed the border into the U.S. more that 20 years ago — settling in the New York City area.

He applied for asylum, but missed a court date and was ordered deported.

Fast forward to last year when Gomez tried to get a driver’s license, Make the Road NY said ICE was alerted and arrested him.

He was scheduled for deportation Wednesday, but attorneys asked a federal immigration judge to drop the deportation order while he appeals his case.

A Pennsylvania judge delayed the deportation, but only until Monday, Jan. 16.

“The federal judge recognized that he and his family faced what’s called irreparable harm. That means harm that you can’t make up to someone if he were to be deported and we absolutely think that was the right decision,” said attorney for Make the Road NY, Paige Austin. “It would be devastating not only to him, but to his daughter and his family if you were deported, and it is almost impossible as a practical matter to continue to pursue an appeal when someone is deported.”

Lema says Gomez moved to Staten Island a decade ago and that his daughter is his life.

“He’s a very hard-working person. All he does is work. He works and comes home and takes care of his daughter. So he’s been the support. He’s been helping me always, you know. I’m working, he will come and pick up his daughter. The first thing he will run and just pick her up and then we’ll head home,” said Monica Lema, Aliya’s mother.

According to Lema, he would work early morning hours as a foreman doing construction so he could be with his daughter when she came home from school.

NY1 spoke to Gomez over the phone while in ICE custody.

“With her I’ve been able to live a childhood I’ve never lived,” Lema interpreted for Gomez. “He’s asking ICE. If ICE sees this to give him a second chance to be with his daughter.”

That second chance is all Aliya Gomez wants.

She says there are two Christmas gifts wrapped and ready, hoping her father will come home so she can give them to him.

“I want them to take my dad out so he can be free with me, with his family,” said Aliya Gomez.

NY1 reached out to ICE for a comment.