Not over yet. Joe Giudice’s deportation has been postponed by a federal judge after he filed a second appeal, Us Weekly can confirm.
According to court documents, Teresa Giudice’s husband will remain in the country until the court has time to look over his case again. Joe, 46, was released from prison in March after completing his 41-month sentence for fraud and immediately transported into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Joe was ordered to be deported to his native Italy in October 2018 following his release from prison. While his first appeal in the case was denied earlier this month, his attorneys vowed to continue to fight for him to remain in America. The former construction business owner has yet to see Teresa, 46, or their four daughters, Gia, 18, Gabriella, 14, Milania, 13, and Audriana, 9, since being taken into ICE custody.
“The facility where Joe is being held does not allow for contact visits,” the Giudice family lawyer James J. Leonard Jr. told Us in a statement on Wednesday, April 24. “Joe does not want to put Teresa and the girls through the horrific ordeal of driving several hours to visit him and not be able to hug him. They would be restricted to talking on a phone while separated by Plexiglass.”
The attorney concluded: “It’s inhumane that this man cannot hug his wife or kiss his daughters.”
Joe is, however, able to speak to his family on the phone.
“He calls her. They text each other, and she can text him and he calls her like ten times a day,” Teresa’s Real Housewives of New Jersey costar Jennifer Aydin told Us Weekly exclusively earlier this month. “They talk, you know they talk about the kids, he’s bored. He’s bored in there and he’s calling her and she’s, you know she misses him but she’s like wow, a lot of phone calls.”
Days before Joe’s deportation was postponed, his eldest daughter started a Change.org petition to keep him in the country.
“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,” Gia pleaded in the petition, which has more than 50,000 signatures. “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.”
