Joe Giudiceis finding it difficult to stay positive amid his deportation case.
As theReal Housewives of New Jerseystar, 49, awaits a decision on the ruling, a source close to the family tells PEOPLE that Joe is losing “hope” that he’ll ever return home to his wifeTeresa Giudiceand their four daughters.
The conditions he’s been living in under ICE’s custody have also taken an emotional toll on Joe, according to the family insider.
“These past few months in ICE [custody] have been harder for Joe than prison was. The conditions there are terrible,” the source says. “He’s so close to freedom, yet so far away. Not being able to see his family, and knowing that he won’t be able to be back home with them, has really broken him.”
“He’s fighting, but he’s really resigned to the fact that he’ll be deported,” the source continues. “And losing that hope has left him bitter, angry, and unhappy. He’s a shell of who he used to be.”
“Teresa and Joehave had their arguments in the past few months, but Teresa doesn’t want Joe to get deported,” adds the source. “She wants him to come home for their family. She loves Joe and it hurts her to see how he is being treated.”
The Giudice Family.Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images
Joe has been away from the New Jersey home he shares with Teresa, 47, and their four kids — Gia, 18, Gabriella, 15, Milania, 14, and Audriana, 10 — since he began serving his 41-month sentence for mail, wire and bankruptcy fraud in March 2016.
He wasreleased from prisonthis past March but is being held in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Clinton County Correctional Center in Pennsylvania, awaiting a decision on his deportation ruling.
In October, an immigration court ruled todeport Joeto hisnative Italyafter his prison sentence. (Even though he has lived in the United States since he was a child, henever obtained American citizenship, and immigrants can be deported if they are convicted of “a crime of moral turpitude” or an “aggravated felony,” according to U.S. law.)
His requests to appeal the deportation ruling have thus farbeen denied. A final decision is pending.
Paul Zimmerman/Getty Images for Mount Airy Casino Resort
On Tuesday, Joe’s legal teamfiled a petition requesting that he be allowed to move to Italyas he awaits the court’s final decision. A request toawait the results back in his New Jersey homewas previously denied.
Just a day later, thetrailer for season 10of theReal Housewives of New Jerseydropped, featuring a rare — and tense — on-camera exchange between Teresa and Joe, who claimed that he never wanted to get married to her in the first place.
In the trailer, Joe also seemed to think that his fate for the deportation case was sealed. “I’m getting deported and that’s all there is to it,” he said in the clip, which brought his daughter Gia to tears.
Teresa Giudice/Instagram
Despite Gia’s sadness, Teresa recently revealed that she and her family were“hanging in there.”
“I am doing good,” she toldEntertainment Tonighton Thursday. “My daughters are doing well. We’re hanging in there.”
“They are doing good, thank god,” Teresa continued, referencing her daughters. “They are pretty amazing, strong, young women. I guess they get it from their mommy… It’s a tough time right now, so just being with my daughters [helps].”
source: people.com
