We had some internal deliberating here at Gript in recent days over how to approach the case of Irishman Seamus Culleton, facing deportation from the United States after a lengthy (and, per one US official, self-chosen) detention in ICE custody pending a deportation back to Ireland.
The cause of that deliberating was the revelations, now reported as fact by the people over at the Irish Daily Mail, that Culleton was facing drugs charges in Ireland at the time of his emigration to the United States in 2009. This situation, if it proves to be true, really bears no relationship to his legal battle to avoid deportation: The alleged crimes were not committed in the United States, and have not been cited by US authorities as a reason to detain him. Arguably, they may be playing a factor in his desire to remain in the USA – but one might imagine that even absent those facts, a man who has lived in a country for 17 years and has a home and a wife in that country would be likely be opposing his own deportation anyway.
The facts of the case that are relevant to his case seem relatively undisputed: That he arrived in the United States in the late naughties, and then remained there after his initial 90-day visa expired, which is a crime under US immigration law. He subsequently, in 2025, married an American citizen, which does not (as it happens) confer an automatic right to residency – though it usually means an application for residency will be expedited. Nevertheless, Culleton’s lawyers have not at any stage made a convincing claim that he has a current legal right to be in the United States. He is neither a citizen of that country, nor in possession of a current visa or Green card.
Instead, his case appears to rest on a moral argument: That, in essence, regardless of the legality of his presence in the USA, he has been a model immigrant. He runs a business in Boston. He has gotten married. He has had no run-ins, prior to his immigration detention, with law enforcement. If you were looking for “positive” examples of immigration – legal status aside – you might point to Culleton as an example par excellence: He comes from a compatible culture, speaks the language, set up a business that adds to US economic activity, and (migration laws aside) obeys the law.
This poses something of a problem for the Irish Government. First, because this yarn is tailor made for an Irish media that views the Trump administration in general as a threat to humanity: Look what they’re doing to one of our own. Our politicians are politically obligated to protest this “grave injustice”.
Second, because (to this point) the decisions of US courts in his case seem relatively straightforward: Culleton stayed in the US illegally, and did not regularise his status.
Third, because the Irish Government has a long record of being hypocritical over the status of “the undocumented Irish” in the United States, regularly over the years arguing that Irish people who have put themselves in that position should receive a kind of special treatment from US authorities that others do not.
In essence, for years, Irish people in the US received just that kind of special treatment, because of the decision of states like New York and Massachusetts not to co-operate with US federal immigration agencies. Irish people in such places generally could expect a blind eye to be turned.
But what of the hypocrisy? The Irish Government at home now claims that it is stepping up deportations and detentions on those people from around the world who reside here in similarly visa-free circumstances. Is Dublin really to argue that migrants in the US should receive treatment that migrants to Ireland would not?
No – and this is both the point, and the trap that is being set for the Government. The objective of some politicos and commentators is to create the very hypocrisy I write of above, making the Irish state hypocritical if it ever decides to enforce its own immigration laws.
That is why, frankly, the correct position of Irish politicians is simply to offer Culleton the same degree of consular assistance that it would to any other Irish citizen detained abroad. What Irish politicians should not be doing is arguing for special treatment in his case or for exceptions and allowances to be made. He should have the same supports as an Irish person facing criminal charges anywhere else in the world – no more and no less.
As to the question of any alleged charges that might or might not be outstanding at home, these are not presently relevant. They are, for the purposes of the main story, a point of conversational interest and nothing more. Nevertheless, they too present a problem for politicians should Culleton end up being deported: Do they compound his miseries by resuming any outstanding prosecutions on his return, or do they decide that he has suffered enough?
This one might have a few twists to go yet.