Again the full story eventually emerges

Sky News reported several days ago:

Seamus, 38, was at a building supplies store in Boston when ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents detained him. …

Housed with 70 other detainees in one tent, he said he feared for his own life. It was striking to hear his Irish accent on the phoneline from there. …

Living in the US for nearly 18 years, he had, in his words, “lived a normal life”.

“Just working hard, staying out of trouble, I wasn’t a big party guy, just spending time with my wife and my dogs,” he said. …

A native of Kilkenny, he arrived in the US in 2009 and overstayed the 90 days of his visa waiver.

But he later married an American, giving him the right to seek a change of status. He had obtained a work permit and was one appointment away from securing a green card.

Sounds terrible. Sounds like he just overstayed his 90 days visa waiver by a few days, and had done everything else right, and was about to get his green card.

But here is what the media didn’t initially report.

• He was wanted in Ireland on drugs charges, and overstayed his 90 days rather than return to Ireland to face them
• He remained illegally in the US for around 16 years
• He only got married to his wife a few months ago
• He was offered a free flight to Ireland, but chose to decline it, leading to his immigration detention
• He has two abandoned children back in Ireland – and none in the US

A very different story to that originally presented.

His abandoned daughters aren’t too happy with him either, says the NY Post:

The estranged twin daughters of an Irishman who has been held in a Texas immigration detention facility for nearly five months blasted their father as an absentee parent — arguing he should be sent back to Ireland to face long-standing drug charges, according to a report.

Heather and Melissa Morrissey felt compelled to speak out after their father, Seamus Culleton, pleaded on RTÉ radio for Irish authorities to intervene in his US detention so he could return to his American wife and life in Boston, where he runs a construction company, according to the Daily Mail. 

The twins, who are about to turn 19, told the outlet that Culleton “abandoned” them when they were 18 months old, leaving their mother, Margaret “Maggie” Morrissey, to raise them alone.

What a champion.

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