Associated Press (Connecticut)
March 18, 2016
A
federal judge in Connecticut has ordered immigration officials to decide
on a 1982 citizenship request by a man who was deported to Italy in
2011 because of misdemeanor convictions.
U.S.
District Judge Vanessa Bryant in Hartford ruled late Thursday that U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services failed to ever issue a decision
onArnold Giammarco's naturalization application,
violating a requirement to decide on such requests within a "reasonable
time." Bryant rejected the federal government's arguments, including
that Giammarco had abandoned his application.
"A three-decade long delay exceeds any rule of reason," Bryant wrote in her ruling.
Giammarco,
a U.S. Army veteran whose wife and 6-year-old daughter live in Niantic,
moved to Connecticut legally with his family when he was a child in the
early 1960s. He currently lives
in Campo di Fano, about two hours east of Rome.
Giammarco
and another Connecticut resident deported to Italy, Paula Milardo, were
subpoenaed last month by Connecticut lawmakers to testify at an April 4
hearing about how criminal convictions
and deportations affect immigrant families. Milardo, who was deported
after a felony theft conviction, also immigrated legally to Connecticut
as a child in the 1960s.
Immigration
officials last week rejected their requests to return to Connecticut to
testify. Giammarco and Milardo, who now lives Melilli in Sicily, are
appealing those decisions.
"This
gives me hope that one day I won't have to tell our daughter why her
dad can't attend her parent teacher conferences and why she shouldn't
save a piece of birthday cake for him this
year," Giammarco's wife, Sharon, said in a statement released by Yale
Law School students, who are representing him.
A
lawyer with the U.S. attorney's office in Hartford who represents
immigration officials didn't immediately return a message seeking
comment Friday.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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