Waterford man and former Irish ambassador to US says what happens to Seamus Culleton not up to Ireland
Seamus Culleton and his wife Tiffany. Photo: Facebook
Seamus Culleton has been held in an ICE detention facility since September of last year. He is originally from Kilkenny but has lived in the United States for the past 20 years. He is married to a US citizen and was in the process of getting a green card when ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents arrested him on his way home from work.
His sister, Caroline Culleton, lives in Waterford and has said she wants to see “action now” from the Irish government to help her brother.
Sinn Féin MEP for Ireland South, Kathleen Funchion, has written to the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas, demanding action which will result in his release.
She wrote: “His detention by ICE is wholly unacceptable, and not legally sound. As a member of the European Parliament delegation for relations with the US, I will be raising this matter at every opportunity.”
Speaking to the Waterford News & Star, former Irish ambassador to the US, Daniel Mulhall, said, “The embassy and the government can really only intervene with respect to Seamus Culleton’s welfare.”
Mr Culleton has told the media that he has spent the past five months in a tent with 72 others in the ICE detention facility in Texas. On a phone call interview on Liveline, he likened the conditions in the detention facility to a “modern-day concentration camp”.
When asked what his message to Irish politicians would be, he said: “Just try to get me out of here and do all you can please.
"It’s an absolute torture, psychological and physical torture. I just want to get back to my wife. We’re so desperate to start a family”.
Mr Mulhall said Mr Culleton’s status in the US is not something that the Irish government can get involved in. The ambassador to the US from 2017 to 2022, he said that a situation like this never arose during his time there. He said, “ICE did exist, but it was not active in the way it is today; it was not holding large numbers of people.”
The Taoiseach has told the Dáil that there are five or six Irish people currently being held in ICE facilities.
Mr Mulhall said that a representation made by the Irish embassy to the US government would be “taken seriously".
“I don’t think the Americans would ignore representations from an embassy, but they have to make up their own minds. And it's up to them how they want to respond to our representations.”
“What happens in America is a matter for the American government.”
It was recently reported by the Irish Times that Mr Culleton was facing drug charges in Ireland when he entered the US as a tourist in 2008. He has a warrant issued in New Ross District Court over the alleged possession of drugs and possession of drugs for sale or supply at Ballyverneen, Glenmore, in May 2008.
He was also facing charges of allegedly obstructing a garda during a search by throwing 25 ecstasy tablets on the ground.
A further warrant was issued by the same court in September 2009, in relation to an alleged criminal damage charge from September 2007 at Weatherstown, Glenmore.
While Mr Mulhall believes the majority of Irish people are sympathetic to Mr Culleton’s situation, “others are not sympathetic to him.”
“That’s not going to weigh on the relationship between Ireland and the United States, which are much bigger than any single case.”
He cited tourism and American investment in Ireland as factors that tie the two countries together.
“I hope it can be resolved, but I don’t think it's going to collapse Irish-American relations because they’re too broad and too fundamental to be undermined by a single case like this.”
