Seamus Culleton exists in two places – his wife’s memory and a detention centre in Texas.
Tiffany Smyth had a handful of photographs to show me, illustrating their life together. Sunbathing on a beach, posing with their two dogs, celebrating their engagement with radiant smiles.
But the hope illustrated in those snapshots was snatched away one afternoon five months ago.
Seamus, 38, was at a building supplies store in Boston when ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents detained him.
Via Buffalo, New York, he eventually ended up at Camp East Montana, El Paso, Texas.
He has described it “like a modern-day concentration camp… horrible and filthy.”
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.
“If it can happen to me… it can kind of happen to anyone,” he told me.
Seamus says he was living a ‘normal life’ in America
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.
Tiffany recalled the moment her husband phoned her to say he had been detained.
“He says ICE picked him up, and I had a million questions… where are they taking you?
“And he said, no, they’re not telling me anything. I’ll call you when I can, and then the phone hung up. I didn’t hear from him for four or five days,” she said.
Fighting through the tears, she described his situation as “hard to believe”.
The deployment of ICE agents has sparked protests in US cities. Pics: Reuters
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.
The Department of Homeland Security describes Seamus Culleton as “an illegal alien from Ireland”.
In a statement, it said a green card application and work permit did not grant someone legal status to be in the United States and rejected claims he was being held in high-risk conditions.
‘Deplorable’ conditions
But his lawyer, Ogor Winnie Okoye, said: “Conditions are deplorable, unimaginable, inhumane, not conducive for even the most atrocious of criminals.”
ICE is currently holding around 70,000 people and 74% of them have no criminal conviction, according to recent data.
Donald Trump pledged the greatest mass deportation in US history, to remove seasoned criminals, “the worst of the worst” in his words.
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“Seamus is not the worst of the worst,” said his lawyer. “He’s the best of what this country’s all about, immigrants coming in and making a difference.”
And despite the current nightmare he is living, he refuses to give up on his American dream.
“The picture in my mind, if I got released, would be just my wife waiting for me with her arms open… and giving her a kiss.
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen her,” he told me.
