Joe Giudice Asks To Be Sent Back To Italy While Awaiting Deportation Decision

There’s been yet another twist in Joe Giudice‘s ongoing deportation case.

In a shocking development, the Real Housewives of New Jersey husband has formally asked the judge presiding over his case to send him back to Italy while he awaits the final ruling on the pending case.

According to a report by People, the Giudices’ longtime lawyer James Leonard, Jr. filed a petition on Tuesday, September 23 requesting that the RHONJ star be allowed to return to Italy rather than wait in ICE custody for the verdict.

“Giving the hardship to Mr. Giudice and his family from his continued detention, the balance of irreparable harm has shift and [Joe] has asked that the stay be lifted so that he could be released from USICE custody and returned to Italy during the pendency of this case,” the request reads as reported by People.

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Essentially, Joe‘s argument in the motion is that he be allowed to go to Italy so that he can start working and contributing to the family financially rather than biding his time in a detention center. In the event that the deportation is overturned, he would ask the judge to allow him to return to the United States and reunite with his family.

This new legal strategy comes less than a week after Joe’s most recent appeal to return home to his family in New Jersey to wait out the remainder of the case was denied. Upon receiving the news, his wife Teresa Giudice lamented that the family is going through a “sad time.”

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“Joe is extremely disappointed,” the family’s attorney said in a statement to People following that denial. “He spent the last six months in a cage not being able to hug or kiss his wife or daughters when they came to visit him. We treat animals in shelters better than we treat human beings in these ICE facilities.”

Joe has been away from his family since beginning his 41-month sentence for mail, wire and bankruptcy fraud in March 2016. Following the completion of his sentence in October 2018, the RHONJ star was ordered to be deported back to Italy — a ruling he and his lawyers have been fighting ever since to seemingly no avail.