HARTFORD — 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.
U.S. District Judge Vanessa Bryant in Hartford ruled Thursday that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services failed to ever issue a decision on Arnold Giammarco’s naturalization application.
Giammarco, a U.S. Army veteran, moved to Connecticut legally with his family as a child in the early 1960s. He was deported in 2011 because of misdemeanor convictions and currently lives in Campo di Fano, about two hours east of Rome.
Giammarco and another Connecticut resident, Paula Milardo, who was deported to Italy were recently subpoenaed by state lawmakers to testify about how convictions affect immigrant families. Both are appealing immigration officials’ rejections of their requests to return to Connecticut to testify.
