Posted on 02/09/2026 3:34:57 PM PST by Decombobulator
An Irish man has spent five months in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention and faces deportation despite having a valid work permit and no criminal record.
Seamus Culleton was a “model immigrant” who had become the victim of a capricious and inept system, said his lawyer, Ogor Winnie Okoye.
Originally from County Kilkenny, Culleton is married to a US citizen and runs a plastering business in the Boston area. While buying supplies at a hardware store on 9 September 2025 he was arrested in a random immigration sweep, according to Okoye, of BOS Legal Group in Massachusetts.
Culleton entered the US in 2009 on a visa waiver programme and overstayed the 90 day-limit but, after marrying a US citizen and applying for lawful permanent residence, he obtained a statutory exemption that allowed him to work, Okoye told the Guardian. “He had a work-approved authorisation that is tied to a green card application,” she said.
Culleton said that when he was arrested he was carrying a Massachusetts driving licence and a valid work permit issued as part of an application for a green card that he initiated in April 2025. He has a final interview remaining.
When asked at the Buffalo facility to sign a form agreeing to deportation, Culleton said he refused and instead ticked a box expressing a wish to contest his arrest, which he intended to do on the grounds that he was married to a US citizen, Tiffany Smyth, and had a valid work permit.
At a November hearing a judge approved his release on a $4,000 bond, which Smyth paid, but authorities continued to detain Culleton, initially without explanation.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
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Ogor Winnie Okoye
Me thinks there is more to the story. Just a hunch.
The Trump administration is only 1/3 the rate of these type errors which were made during the Obama administration.
When you are dealing with hundreds of thousands of cases, there will be errors.
Only 5 months? He is lucky he wasn’t on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol on 1-6-2021.
There always is.
“””Culleton entered the US in 2009 on a visa waiver programme and overstayed the 90 day-limit “”
“””Culleton said that when he was arrested he was carrying a Massachusetts driving licence and a valid work permit issued as part of an application for a green card that he initiated in April 2025. He has a final interview remaining. “”””
So his visa expired in 2009.
He decided to work on a green card in 2025 after Trump took office.
Guilty.
GTFO!
He stole me lucky charms
Break our laws,Seamus,and you're out of here! See ya!
Sob story.
The guy's attorney.
> Me thinks there is more to the story. <
Yep. It’s The Guardian. So the story could be completely true, true but incomplete, or totally made up.
Lefties are inconsistent that way.
If he had just obeyed the officer’s command[s].......
States need to stop issuing drivers licenses to non citizens.
But I’m supposed to get a Real ID?
Illegals get preferences and citizens get more bureaucracy.
An Irishman locked up in the stir for five months? He should be sober by now. Let him go! Irish lives matter!!
Texas needs to round up all the immigrants from Massachusetts and ship them back to Boston. Ship the folks from Minnesota to Massachusetts as well. Both long state names that start with M and are cold in the winter. So the folks from Minnesota should feel at home, shouldn't they?
Did the feds take him away in the Paddy wagon?
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