An Irishman who overstayed his 90-day tourist visa more than 15 years ago has been held in a Texas immigration detention facility for nearly five months rather than be deported, despite calling it a form of “torture.”
Seamus Culleton, who is married to an American woman, told Irish media that he has a valid US work permit and a pending green card application when he was suddenly picked up by agents in Boston, where he runs a construction company.
He was cuffed and eventually flown more than 2,000 miles from home to a camp facility at Fort Bliss Army base in Texas, where he alleges he’s been locked in the same “filthy” room.
“It’s a nightmare down here,” Culleton complained to RTE, caiming he is “in fear for my life.”
“It’s just a torture, I just don’t know how much more I can take.”
The Kilkenny native claimed that he did not know why he was being held — while admitting that he refused to sign papers approving his deportation.
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin cited that as proof that the Irishman chose to stay in detention, while stressing he was only in the country by overstaying his initial tourist visa.
“He entered the United States in 2009 under the visa waiver program, which allows you to stay in the US for 90 days without a visa. He failed to depart the US,” she said in a statement on X.
“He received full due process and was issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge on September 10, 2025,” McLaughlin continued.
“He was offered the chance to instantly be removed to Ireland but chose to stay in ICE custody, in fact he took affirmative steps to remain in detention,” she stressed.
Culleton said he was initially pulled over by the feds on Sept. 9 after he’d stopped at a Home Depot to return some items in his van.
“I complied with everything they said. They asked me if I had a green card, I said I didn’t, I said I was married to a citizen and that I had a marriage-based petition in place and I was just about to receive my green card and that I had a work permit to be here and work,” he claimed.
He added that he believed he was OK, given that he had received a work permit roughly a month earlier.
His wife,Tiffany Smyth, recalled getting the call from her husband. “He rang me and he said ‘don’t freak out’, I said ‘what is wrong?’ and he said ‘ICE picked me up,” she told RTE.
Culleton was initially taken to a holding cell in Burlington, Massachusetts, before being transferred to the detention camp facility at Fort Bliss Army base in Texas.
As his case made it’s way through the immigration courts, Culleton claims he has been forced to endure torturous conditions that have left him fearing for his life.
“You don’t know what’s going to happen on a day-to-day basis. You don’t know if there’s going to be riots, you don’t know what’s going to happen,” Culleton said, saying he has been locked in the same room for months.
“I have barely any outside time, no fresh air, no sunshine. We have two TVs on the wall, there are 72 detainees here in total. We get three meals a day, very very small meals – kid size meals, so everybody is hungry,” he said, adding that the “completely nasty” bathrooms are “very rarely cleaned.”
Culleton’s sister, Caroline, called the moment her brother was picked up “the start of the whole nightmare.”
“His whole life just ended that day, it was put on hold.”
Politicians in the detained man’s native Ireland have vowed to complain to the White House about his case.