Irish Man in ICE Detention for Five Months Claims Agents Forged His Signature on Documents

There’s a lot to be infuriated by at the moment, when it comes to the subject of ICE detention, whether it’s the tortuous, subhuman conditions of detention camps, or mysterious, immediate deaths of otherwise healthy individuals entering those camps or prisons. But somehow, it’s the truly pointless detentions that might be the most purely rage-inducing. These are the detentions that we can assume only happened because ICE has an immutable quota it needs to fill as the Trump administration attempts to bump its detention/deportation numbers up to 100,000 daily human beings in ICE detention for the first time in the country’s history. How else to explain why Seamus Culleton, a native of Ireland with a valid U.S. work permit and no criminal record, who is married to a U.S. citizen and was about to receive his green card, was seized by ICE from his home in Boston and has subsequently spent the last five months imprisoned in a notorious ICE detention facility in Texas? Here’s the kicker: In addition to describing the place as “like a concentration camp, absolute hell,” Culleton has also indirectly claimed that ICE forged his signature on documents claiming that he would agree to be deported.

The 42-year-old Seamus Culleton was born in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and originally traveled to the United States in 2009 on a visa waiver program. He ultimately overstayed (by many, many years) his 90-day limit, falling in love and marrying a U.S. citizen, Tiffany Smyth. Culleton applied for lawful permanent residence, obtained a statutory exemption that allowed him to work and went through the long and winding process of applications and interviews to be granted a green card, while running a plastering business in the Boston area. He was followed by ICE agents in September of 2025 while buying supplies for his business at a hardware store, arrested, and has been in federal custody ever since. The detention caused him to miss the October appointment where he would have undergone his final interview for his green card, according to his lawyer, Ogor Winnie Okoye, who told The Guardian the obvious: The simplest thing for the government to do would have been to simply let this man go to his appointment rather than locking him up for absolutely no reason.

“It’s inexplicable that this man has been in detention,” Okoye said. “It does not make sense. There’s no reason why the government shouldn’t just release him and allow him to attend the interview that will confirm his legal status.”

Seamus Culleton, spotless after 20 US years, rots in ICE’s starving tent hell for months, green card stalled by forged lies, his bond cash vanished into agency shadows where death stalks silent men. #ICEabuse

— Anonymous ⩜ (@youranona.bsky.social) Feb 9, 2026 at 4:48 PM

But Culleton’s detention hasn’t only been entirely pointless, it’s also continued on despite a judge approving his release and a bond being paid. At a November hearing, an immigration judge approved Culleton’s release on a $4,000 bond, which his wife Smyth promptly paid. Despite that, ICE simply didn’t release Culleton from detention, and at first refused to offer Smyth any kind of explanation for why it was refusing to do so. It took an appeal from Culleton’s attorney to a federal court to even get an explanation for why he wasn’t being released: Two ICE agents claimed that while being held at an ICE facility in Buffalo, N.Y., before he was transferred to Texas, Culleton had signed documents in which he agreed to be deported. Seamus Culleton, meanwhile, vehemently denied this, saying that he had indicated in writing his wish to contest his arrest and detention, and that the signatures on the document were not his.

“My whole life is here,” Culleton stated through his lawyer. “I worked so hard to build my business. My wife is here.”

According to The Guardian‘s reporting, the immigration judge “noted irregularities in ICE’s court documents,” but sided with the agency anyway. Culleton has no power to appeal, and is currently seeking to have handwriting experts examine the signatures on the documents, in addition to obtaining video footage of his ICE interview in Boston that he says could also prove he didn’t sign those papers.

Which is all to say the following: Culleton is alleging, without actually saying the words, that ICE forged his signature on paperwork claiming that he would agree to be deported back to Ireland, and a Trump admin-friendly immigration judge, despite noting how fishy it all was, didn’t elect to do anything about it. The administration’s official narrative, meanwhile, is that after 16 years in the United States, Seamus Culleton would agree to be deported to Ireland and separated from his life, his business, his wife and the beloved dogs who are in seemingly every photo of the guy. Who seems more likely to be lying, in this scenario? The faceless, brutal government agency attempting to hit mandatory deportation quotas, or the guy they’re claiming has agreed to have his entire life taken away from him?

Moreover, ICE chose to send Culleton to what is, without a doubt, one of its very worst detention facilities, Camp East Montana on the grounds of Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. This makeshift tent facility has been the site of multiple detainee deaths in the last few months, including the case of Geraldo Lunas Campos, whose death was ruled a homicide via asphyxiation by the local medical examiner. Named witnesses at Camp East Montana stated that they saw guards choking Campos, in what has stood out to date as perhaps the clearest case of murder in detention perpetrated by federal immigration agents. We’re still waiting to see how exactly ICE will spin the death of Campos when it issues its full detainee death report, legally required within 90 days. Culleton even seemed to mention this death in a recent radio interview.

“A modern-day concentration camp … People have been killed by the staff here.” Irish citizen Seamus Culleton has been in ICE detention since September, despite having a valid work permit and his own business in the US.

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— Dave Vetter (@davidrvetter.bsky.social) Feb 10, 2026 at 5:09 AM

Culleton, meanwhile, said that he had been placed in a 16 ft by 35ft room with no ceiling with 72 other detainees, with nothing to do for the last five months but lay in bed and waste away. He has said that illness and competition for meager food is rampant within the facility, but that he doesn’t fear the other inmates: “I’m afraid of the staff. They’re capable of anything.”

Speaking to Ireland’s RTÉ radio, Culleton begged Ireland’s Prime Minister, Micheál Martin, to personally advance his case to the famously empathy-filled Donald Trump while visiting the White House in March.

“Just try to get me out of here and do all you can, please,” Culleton pleaded. “It’s an absolute torture, psychological and physical torture. It’s just a horrible, horrible, horrible place.”

Recently, Culleton’s wife Tiffany was able to physically see her husband for the first time in roughly five months via a video call, only to be shocked by his appearance. One wonders if the U.S. government is effectively trying to torture the man into submission, hoping that by making his life as awful and painful as possible, he will agree to deportation and waive his rights to contest it.

“He’d lost a lot of weight,” said sister Caroline Culleton. “His physical demeanor. He looks totally different. I just hope he’s okay and that this doesn’t scar him for the rest of his life.”