son of American Vietnam soldier, arrived in USA at age 18 months. deported at age 59 to Italy [View all]

[Episcopal News Service] In late February, Davide Adamo Bundy, 59 – born in Italy and reared in Arkansas – landed at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport carrying his belongings in a red mesh “tater” sack and with $67 in the pocket of his government-issued sweatpants.

His journey to Italy began when he was released from an Oklahoma jail after charges against him in an assault case were dropped, he was handed over to ICE and an immigration judge ordered him deported to Italy, where he had not lived since infancy. With two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers he bypassed security and boarded a domestic flight in Dallas, Texas, and then transferred at Washington Dulles International Airport for the flight to Rome. He sat between the two officers. Three in-flight movies and nine and a half sleepless hours later, he arrived in Italy.

It was not the first time Bundy had faced a deportation order. A decade earlier, a judge had ordered him deported, but this time the order was executed. He arrived in Rome on Feb. 24, 2026. He exchanged his U.S. dollars for €42 at the airport currency exchange at a 15% markup and bought a €14 ticket on the Leonardo Express to Rome’s main train station. Exhausted, he bought a slice of pizza, a soda and a bottle of vodka and sat down outside the train station.

As he sat there, a man approached him and asked him if he was OK. Bundy hadn’t had alcohol in a long time and was not OK. The man offered him €100 and, with the help of the man’s partner, guided him to a Catholic-run shelter for refugees and migrants. Still, he said, he spent his first 36 nights in Rome sleeping on a piece of cardboard, a protective layer against the cold concrete, before a bed opened up. He also found his way to the Episcopal-run Joel Nafuma Refugee Center, where he is now studying Italian and receiving additional legal and social support.

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Bundy was born on Jan. 5, 1967, to an unwed couple, an Italian woman and an American serviceman stationed at an Army garrison in Vicenza during the Vietnam War. His biological father abandoned his mother. The out-of-marriage pregnancy embarrassed her family, and she was sent to a convent to give birth. After Bundy was born, his mother found work cleaning rooms in a hotel frequented by American soldiers on leave. His parents met while she was working and he was staying at the hotel.

https://episcopalnewsservice.org/2026/05/27/after-ice-deported-him-to-italy-arkansas-man-turns-to-romes-refugee-relief-agencies-for-help/