Absolute hell': Irishman with valid US work permit held by Ice since September [View all]

https://www.irishtimes.com/world/us/2026/02/09/absolute-hell-irish-man-with-valid-us-work-permit-held-by-ice-since-september/



Absolute hell’: Irishman with valid US work permit held by Ice since September

Seamus Culleton has been in a detention facility in Texas for nearly five months despite having no criminal record


An Irishman living in the United States for more than 20 years has been held by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officials since being arrested last September.

Originally from Glenmore, Co Kilkenny, Seamus Culleton is married to a US citizen and owns a plastering business in the Boston area. He was arrested on September 9th, 2025, and has been in an Ice detention facility in Texas for nearly five months, despite having no criminal record, “not even a parking ticket”. In a phone interview from the facility, he said conditions there are “like a concentration camp, absolute hell”.


Culleton said he was carrying a Massachusetts driving licence and a valid work permit issued by the US government when he was pulled over by Ice on the way home from work in September. His work permit was issued as part of an application for a green card which he initiated in April 2025. He has a final interview remaining.

After his arrest, Culleton was allowed a brief phone call to his American wife Tiffany Smyth. She said she “broke down and cried. To know he was just taken, and he or I had no idea where they were taking him, was traumatising”.

In Buffalo he was interviewed by an Ice agent, who asked if he would sign a form agreeing to his deportation. Culleton said he refused, and instead ticked a box where detainees can state they wish to contest their arrest. He wrote down that his grounds for contesting were that he was married to a US citizen and had a valid work permit.