‘RHONJ’ Star Teresa and Joe Giudice’s Kids ‘Suffering Very Much’ Amid Deportation

Real Housewives of New Jersey star Teresa Giudice‘s husband, Joe Giudice, recently lost his appeal regarding his deportation to Italy, meaning that the father of four is still on the path to being forced to leave the country.

“Well, listen, they’re all suffering very much,” Teresa’s brother, Joe Gorga, told Us Weekly of his nieces. “They just got to keep their head up high and that’s what they’re doing. They’re strong little girls, and they’re just going to keep fighting, you know?”

Joe and Teresa share four daughters, Gia, 18, Gabriella, 15, Milania, 13, and Audriana, 10. Gia recently started a Change.org petition to keep her father in the country, with the petition currently receiving over 86,000 signatures with a goal of 150,000.

“Just sign the petition, [we need] as many signatures that we can get,” Gorga said. “We gotta get their daddy home! Every little girl needs their daddy.”

Gia’s petition is a plea to Donald Trump to stop Joe’s deportation, with the 18-year-old writing that her father “has resided in New Jersey his entire life.”

“He knows nothing of Italian culture, laws, societal norms, he has no immediate family and will not be able to secure work in this foreign land,” she wrote. “My father is not a danger to society, he is a warm loving man and I beg you sign our petition to give my father a second chance at being part of our lives and giving back to the community we live in once a again.”

Joe’s appeal was denied in April by the Executive Office for Immigration Review, E! News reports. After that decision, the reality personality’s legal team filed a petition for the federal court to review the decision, but if the court declines to do so, Joe will be deported, according to a source.

In March, Joe completed a 41-month prison sentence he served after pleading guilty to 41 counts of fraud, which included mail, wire and bankruptcy. Teresa had also pleaded guilty and served 11 months in 2015. Joe was originally ordered to be deported to Italy upon his release in October by an immigration court. Since his release from prison, he has been staying at a facility in western Pennsylvania which houses immigration detainees.

Joe has lived in the United States since he was a child but never became an American citizen.

During the recent RHONJ reunion, Teresa said that if Joe were to be deported, the couple would likely separate.

“I’m not doing a long distance relationship. I’m not doing it,” she said. “I want somebody with me every day.”

“I know exactly what happens — I’m sure he’ll be with other women. It happens,” she continued. “You do the long-distance thing, it’s not going to work. I’d be like, ‘Bye bye.’”

Photo Credit: Instagram / @teresagiudice