“Absolute Hell”: Irish Man With a Valid Work Permit in ICE Detention

A legal immigrant with a valid work permit who has lived in the U.S. for over 20 years has been held in ICE custody since September.

Seamus Culleton has no criminal record, “not even a parking ticket,” is married to a U.S. citizen, and owns a plastering business near Boston. Culleton said he was pulled over by ICE agents while driving home from work five months ago, and had his Massachusetts driver’s license and work permit with him.

He was then detained and held in a cell with several other immigrants before being flown to an ICE facility in Buffalo, New York, where he was asked to sign papers agreeing to his deportation. Culleton said he refused and checked a box that he was contesting his deportation on the grounds that his wife is a U.S. citizen and that he has a valid work permit, thanks to his pending application for permanent resident status filed last April.

But from there, he was then taken to another ICE detention center in El Paso, Texas. Culleton said conditions there are “like a concentration camp, absolute hell” in a phone interview with The Irish Times, as he shares a large, cold, and damp room with over 70 men. Meals are small child-sized portions served in the center of the room, and detainees often fight over the food.

Culleton said that he has only left the room for fresh air and exercise less than 12 times in his nearly five-month detention, and is stuck laying on a bed most days. His wife paid a $4,000 bond for his release in November, but nothing happened, and days later, they found that Culleton’s bond had been denied, unlike in most other cases.

Culleton’s attorney appealed the case to federal court, where ICE agents claimed that he had signed documents agreeing to his own deportation, which he adamantly denies, saying that the signatures can’t be his.

“My whole life is here [in the U.S.] I worked so hard to build my business. My wife is here,” Culleton said. A federal judge noted irregularities in the documents, but still sided with ICE.

Legally, Culleton can’t appeal further, but believes that video of his interview with ICE in Buffalo would show that he refused to agree to his own deportation in writing. Any signatures, he said, would not match his. He added that ICE agents tried again to get him to sign a deportation order.

“You have one section of the government trying to deport me, and another trying to give me a green card,” Culleton said.