Seamus Culleton, the Irishman from Kilkenny who is currently detained in Texas awaiting deportation, was facing drug charges when he moved to the US.<\/p>\n
According to the Irish Times<\/a>, he was facing charges of alleged possession of drugs, and possession of drugs for sale or supply, at Ballyverneen, Glenmore, in May 2008.<\/p>\n A warrant was issued for his arrest in April 2009, a month after he had relocated across the Atlantic.<\/p>\n He was also allegedly facing charges for obstructing a garda during a search by throwing 25 ecstasy tablets on the ground.<\/p>\n A further warrant was issued in September 2009, in relation to an alleged criminal damage charge from September 2007 at Weatherstown, Glenmore.<\/p>\n Culleton moved to the US in March 2009, and married a US citizen Tiffany Smith in April last year. He had applied for a green card on the basis of his marriage, but in September, he was picked up by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and transferred to a detention facility in Texas.<\/p>\n Culleton has described the conditions there as “like a modern day concentration camp<\/a>“, a statement which the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has described as “false”<\/a>.<\/p>\n The DHS has alleged that when Culleton arrived in the US in 2009 under a visa waiver programme, which allows people to stay in the US for 90 days without a visa, he did not leave after this period.<\/p>\n \u201cA pending green card application and work authorisation does not give someone legal status to be in our country,” the DHS previously said.<\/p>\n Culleton has asked for his case to be raised in the Taoiseach’s visit to the White House in March.<\/p>\n