PRESSURE REMAINS ON the government to support Seamus Culleton, who remains in ICE detention in the United States, despite his past run-ins with the Irish legal system.

Labour’s justice spokesperson Duncan Smith said that details which have emerged about Culleton’s past should have no bearing on how the government responds to his detention.

Last night, The Journal reported that the Irishman, who has been detained by US immigration officials since September, could be deported home to Ireland as early as next week. 

Culleton (38) was at a Home Depot store in Boston when ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents detained him.

This week, his family went public with his case in the hope that the Irish Government would help him. 

Speaking on RTÉ’s Liveline on Monday from Ero El Paso Camp East Montana, in Texas, Culleton detailed the poor conditions he is being detained in, describing it as “absolute torture”. 

He, along with 72 other men, is being kept in a tent in “filty” conditions, with many detainees suffering from illness.

“We’re often without hygiene products. We’re often without shampoo and soap. The showers are filthy, the toilets are filthy. Infection, disease and sickness is rife here,” he said.

It emerged this week that Culleton, who has lived in the US for 20 years and is married to a US citizen, had a number of interactions with the justice system in Ireland before he moved to the US.

One incident involved the alleged possession for sale or supply of MDMA (ecstasy) and an attempt to get rid of the drugs when being searched by gardaí in 2008.

He was charged with obstruction but did not appear in court and a bench warrant was issued for his arrest in April 2009, after he had moved to the US.

Separately, another bench warrant was issued for Culleton’s arrest after he failed to appear in court when facing criminal damage charges in September 2007.

However, Labour’s foreign affairs spokesperson Duncan Smith told The Journal that the facts do not change the human rights issues presented by Culleton’s detention in an ICE facility.

“My position hasn’t changed one iota. The key issue here is the horrific conditions with which Seamus and indeed thousands of others are being held in these ICE detention centres,” Smith said.

“They’re subhuman, and nobody deserves that.

“What we’re asking for is due process, and what we’re asking for is an upholding of basic human rights. Neither of these things, we believe, are happening,” the Dublin Fingal East TD said.

“An outstanding bench warrant does not make the punishment he is receiving now justified in any way, shape or form.”

Smith said it is still incumbent on Taoiseach Micheál Martin to raise Culleton’s ICE detention with US President Donald Trump and his officials when he travels to the US for St Patrick’s Day next month. 

The Labour TD’s position was echoed by Sinn Féin MEP Kathleen Funchion.

Earlier this week, Funchion wrote to the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas, seeking help to secure Culleton’s release.

Speaking to The Journal today, she said that regardless of Culleton’s issues with the law in Ireland, she doesn’t think “anyone can stand over a system that sees someone detained for five months”.

“And at the end of the day, he was due to get his green card,” the MEP added. 

Meanwhile, Larry Donnelly, a US attorney and law lecturer at the University of Galway, said Culleton’s legal issues in Ireland are “pretty irrelevant Stateside”.

“I would strongly suggest that a bench warrant here for drink/drugs as a very young man in 2008, with no criminality since, is not the reason why he wants to stay in Boston,” Donnelly wrote on social media platform X. 

Speaking to The Journal, Donnelly said: “He’s probably on his way back here [to Ireland], but that doesn’t mean he won’t get into the States again at some point. He can be readmitted.”

He added, however, that this could be a slow process and may take years.

“US immigration law is very grey; for every rule there is an exception. What his lawyers will continue to argue is that while he was there, he committed no crime.

“He’s not a sympathetic figure, but you don’t need to be a saint to get into the US,” Donnelly said. He added that the fact that Culleton is married to a US citizen and has set up a business in the States will also be factors in his favour.

Data released via a Freedom of Information request to The Journal in December show that 63 individuals in the US requested assistance from the Department of Foreign Affairs in 2025 in relation to deportations.

This was a significant increase on the previous year, when 15 people requested assistance. 

The number was 18 in 2023, 11 in 2022 and five in 2021.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin told the Dáil this week that the Irish government is aware of around “five to six” cases of Irish citizens detained by ICE.

There are an estimated 10,000 undocumented Irish people currently living in the US. 

Currently, over 70,000 people are being held in ICE detention in the United States. 75% of them have no criminal convictions.