{"id":291604,"date":"2026-02-11T02:46:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T02:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/291604\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T02:46:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T02:46:15","slug":"ireland-pushing-to-free-citizen-held-by-ice-in-texas-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/291604\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland pushing to free citizen held by ICE in Texas \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Culleton has been Ireland\u2019s top news story since the Irish Times on<\/a> Monday reported<\/a> on his case and on the allegedly appalling conditions<\/a> he faces in Camp East Montana, the ICE facility inside Fort Bliss army base near El Paso.<\/p>\n

The same day, Culleton appeared live on air<\/a> on Ireland\u2019s RT\u00c9 radio to describe conditions of overcrowding, filth, disease, hunger and violence \u2014 and a personal fear, now set aside, that speaking out might make matters even worse for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely am afraid of rotting away here. It feels like I\u2019m just stuck and there\u2019s no way out,\u201d Culleton told RT\u00c9 in an hourlong broadcast that included live interviews with his American wife in Boston and his sister back in Waterford, Ireland.<\/p>\n

Culleton admitted having overstayed his U.S. visa two decades ago, but said he\u2019s been pursuing legal residency via his ongoing application for a green card, buttressed by his valid work permit, his employment as a plasterer and his April 2025 marriage. He\u2019s one of at least 10,000 undocumented Irish citizens<\/a> who have lived, often for decades, in the United States.<\/p>\n

Opposition leaders raised Culleton\u2019s case Tuesday on the floor of D\u00e1il \u00c9ireann, Ireland\u2019s parliament \u2014 and accused Martin of tolerating human rights abuses of Irish citizens for the sake of keeping Trump sweet on economic matters.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou must commit now on the floor of the D\u00e1il to pulling out every stop, using every diplomatic lever, to secure Seamus\u2019 release. No delays, no waiting for St. Patrick\u2019s Day,\u201d charged Ivana Bacik<\/a>, leader of the opposition Labour Party.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Culleton has been Ireland\u2019s top news story since the Irish Times on Monday reported on his case and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[21465,16101,61,1629,60,1843,6830,43,26145,299,769,115,15207],"class_list":{"0":"post-291604","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-department","9":"tag-human-rights","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-immigration","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-micheal-martin","14":"tag-migration","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-parliament","17":"tag-rights","18":"tag-security","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-visas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}