This story was originally published by our news partners at WBUR. We are republishing it in partnership with the New England News Collaborative.
The wife of Seamus Culleton, a 38-year-old Irish man who has lived in the Boston area for nearly 20 years, is urging federal immigration officials to release her husband after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested him in September.
Culleton, who runs a plastering business in Wakefield, was arrested by ICE agents on Sept. 9 outside a Home Depot in Saugus. He had been in the process of obtaining a green card when he was taken by agents and flown to Texas, where he’s being detained.
“We tried to do everything the right way,” said Culleton’s wife, Tiffany Smith, “so I am just begging to let us at least finish that.”
Smith is an American citizen. She and her lawyer, Ogor Winnie Okoye, held a press conference Wednesday to raise awareness about Culleton’s detention and pressure the Department of Homeland Security to remove an immigration judge’s order of removal. Culleton and Smith were married in April 2025, and he applied for a green card soon thereafter. Culleton had also received a work permit, Okoye said.
She said U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had scheduled interviews with Culleton for the green card in November and December but both meetings were canceled because he’s been in ICE custody for nearly five months.
“We’re asking for his immediate release so that he can complete the process of adjusting his status to that of a lawful permanent resident of the United States,” Okoye said.
In the past, she said, DHS has allowed applicants the opportunity to finish their green card applications and granted “favorable discretion” to immediate relatives of U.S. citizens for overstaying their visas.
Okoye said Culleton entered the U.S. in 2009 under a tourist visa waiver program but overstayed the permitted 90 days.
After his arrest, Culleton was first moved to an ICE facility in Burlington and then to Buffalo, New York before he was locked up at Fort Bliss Army base in El Paso, Texas. Speaking to Irish state broadcaster RTÉ from detention, Culleton described the conditions there as “filthy” and a “nightmare.”
At the press conference, Okoye described a confusing legal battle with immigration authorities. She said a judge granted Culleton release on a $4,000 bond in November, which his wife paid, but ICE continued to hold him. Okoye said immigration officials presented documents showing that Culleton consented to his deportation, but she contends her client never actually signed them.
“I believed my client when he said that he never saw nor signed any of those documents,” Okoye said.
Previous petitions challenging Culleton’s detention on due process violations and unlawful detention have been unsuccessful, according to Okoye, but she is considering other legal avenues.
Assistant DHS Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin disputed that Culleton was treated unfairly.
“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,” McLaughlin said. “A pending green card application and work authorization does not give someone legal status to be in our country.”
Culleton’s detention has sparked growing concern in Ireland, where Prime Minister Micheál Martin has promised to “do everything we can” to secure his release, according to Politico.
Nearly 70,000 people are currently being held in ICE facilities around the country, according to ICE.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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