Irish Man Who’s Been Held by ICE for Months Calls Facility a ‘Modern-Day Concentration Camp’
(Photo via Irish Times)
An Irish man with legal permission to work in the United States, who has spent nearly five months in a Texas ICE detention facility, has described the conditions there as a “modern-day concentration camp” in a harrowing interview, detailing widespread illness and competition for food.
Seamus Culleton, of Ireland’s County Kilkenny, has lived in the US for nearly 20 years and is married to an American citizen. Despite holding a valid work permit and being in the final stages of receiving a green card — with no criminal record — he was detained by ICE agents in September 2025 after he was stopped while driving home from work.
Culleton, who is now being held at a detention facility in El Paso, Texas, gave an interview on Monday to Kieran Cuddihy, the host of Liveline on Irish broadcaster RTÉ.
He described being locked in the “same room” for months, as well as the “filthy” conditions and lack of adequate food for the population:
The best way I could describe it is probably like a modern-day concentration camp. It’s a bunch of temporary tents. There’s probably room for a thousand detainees in each tent. I believe there’s like five tents. I’ve been locked in the same room now for four and a half months. I’ve had barely any outside time, no fresh air, no sunshine. I could probably count on both hands the amount of times I’ve been outside. So I’ve just been locked in this room all day, every day.
Describing the broader conditions, he said:
We get three meals a day, very, very small meals, kid-sized meals. So everybody’s hungry, everybody’s tired. We’ve no commissary, we’ve got no options to get extra food or anything like that. The conditions here are filled. The toilets, the showers, completely nasty, very rarely cleaned.
He then added:
I’m in fear for my life now here, honestly, because people are being killed by the staff here, by the security staff, you know? And you just don’t know what’s going to happen on a day-to-day basis. You don’t if there’s going to be riots, you don’t… You don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s a nightmare down here.
The host of the show then asked, given the small meals, whether there was “competition for food” to which Culleton said “absolutely there is” and described how staff give “preference” to certain detainees.
“So we’d be extremely lucky to get anything extra,” he added.
Culleton also argued that ICE officers attempted to pressure him into signing deportation papers, something he said he “absolutely” refused.
“It’s just torture. I don’t know how much more I can take,” he said.
His wife Tiffany, a U.S. citizen, said she was left in the dark for days after his detention, fearing he had been deported.
“He’s a good man. I don’t think anyone deserves this, but Seamus definitely doesn’t deserve this,” she said, adding that visits are technically permitted, but it’s “almost impossible to set one up.”
The case has now taken on diplomatic weight, with Culleton appealing for Taoiseach Micheál Martin, the Irish prime minister, to raise it directly with President Donald Trump during their White House meeting in March.
Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed it is engaging “at a senior level” with U.S. authorities on the case.
Watch above via RTÉ.
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