After Real Housewives of New Jersey star Teresa Giudice’s husband, Joe, lost his appeal in his deportation case, the couple’s children are making last-ditch efforts to keep Joe from being expelled to Italy. On Tuesday, April 23, Joe’s eldest daughter, Gia Giudice, started a petition asking President Donald Trump to stop the 46-year-old’s deportation.
In the Change.org petition, Gia, 18, describes her father as “a businessman, a husband, father to four young women all under the age of 19, son, brother, uncle and friend to many.” She admits he was “found guilty of NON Violent offenses” — referring to his and Teresa’s 2014 guilty plea to mail, wire and bankruptcy fraud charges — but points out that her parents “ought tirelessly to pay back every single penny of restitution [the] court deemed they owe.”
She continues: “My father is there for us in every possible way a father could be. He has always been our handyman, our [confidante], our cheerleader, our challenger and most importantly our protector. This [deportation] would rob us of my father screaming from the stands at our graduations, meeting our future husbands for the first time, of walking us down the aisle, of being there when his grandchildren come into the world.”
“We request that our President, Donald J Trump, review our petition and pardon my father to relieve him of this life sentence the courts are bestowing on him,” she concludes. “Yes in Italy he will no longer be incarcerated but will he ever be free if kept from his family and be able to be a productive member of society?”
The message is signed by Gia, Teresa, and Gia’s three sisters: Gabriella, 14, Milania, 13, and Audriana, 9. In the first four hours, more than 9,000 supporters added signatures to the petition.
After Gia shared the petition on Instagram, Teresa, 46, commented to say, “Love you.” Earlier in the day, Milania shared a screenshot on Instagram of Joe’s sister Maria Fazliu asking Trump to intervene.
Milania also tried to bring the matter to the President’s attention, tagging him on her Instagram post about her father on Friday, April 19. “I need you home daddy,” she wrote to Joe, who has been in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody since completing his 41-month prison sentence last month. “All I want is to be a family again.”
