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By Janelle Griffith
“Real Housewives of New Jersey” star Teresa Giudice’s husband, Joe Giudice, was granted a temporary delay in his deportation order Thursday as his family made a direct appeal to President Donald Trump to intervene on his behalf.
His immigration lawyers filed for a stay in federal court Thursday after the Board of Immigration Appeals denied his appeal of the deportation order this month.
Joe and Teresa Giudice pleaded guilty in 2014 to bankruptcy fraud and conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud. Joe Giudice also pleaded guilty to not paying about $200,000 in income taxes.
Teresa Giudice, 46, served almost a year in prison and was freed in December 2015.
Joe Giudice, 46, whose full name is Giuseppe, is an Italian citizen who was brought to the United States by his parents when he was one. He has said he was unaware he was not an American citizen.
In October, a judge ordered that he be deported after he completed his prison term.
He was released from federal prison in March after serving 41 months and moved to a facility in western Pennsylvania which houses immigration detainees.
His wife and two of his four daughters posted a link to a Change.org petition Wednesday to their Instagram accounts addressed to Trump. The petition was started earlier this week by the couple’s eldest daughter, Gia, 18.
In it, she asks Trump to give her father “a second chance.”
“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, 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?”
Teresa Giudice has publicly stated that she would separate from her husband if he is deported.
“We do the long distance thing, it’s not going to work,” she told Andy Cohen during the “Real Housewives'” season 9 reunion in March. “I’d be like, ‘Bye bye.'”
The reality TV star has been vocal about her support of Trump and competed on “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2012.