Local MEP appeals for EU help as Kilkenny man held by ICE
Seamus Culleton, originally from Glenmore, Co Kilkenny, with his wife Tiffany Smyth, a US citizen. Image from The Irish Times
SINN Féin MEP Kathleen Funchion has asked the EU’s foreign policy chief to raise the case of a Kilkenny man who has been held by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for about five months despite holding a valid work permit.
In a statement issued today, 10 February, Ms Funchion, who has previously represented the Carlow-Kilkenny constituency before becoming an MEP, said she had written to EU high representative for foreign affairs Kaja Kallas “requesting that her office make immediate contact with the US Authorities” to seek the release of Seamus Culleton. The MEP said Mr Culleton, “a Kilkenny native”, has lived in the US for 20 years and that his detention is “wholly unacceptable”.
Mr Culleton, originally from Glenmore, Co Kilkenny, runs a plastering business in the Boston area and is married to US citizen Tiffany Smyth, according to the Irish Times.
The Irish Times reports he was arrested on 9 September 2025 while buying supplies at a hardware store in Massachusetts, and later transferred through ICE custody near Boston and in Buffalo, New York, before being flown to an ICE facility in El Paso, Texas.
According to his lawyer, Ogor Winnie Okoye, Mr Culleton entered the US in 2009 under the visa waiver programme and overstayed the 90-day limit, but later married a US citizen and began a lawful permanent residence process. The lawyer told the media he obtained work authorisation tied to his green card application.
It is reported that a judge approved his release on a US$4,000 bond at a November hearing and the bond was paid, but ICE continued to detain him. ICE later claimed he had signed documents agreeing to deportation, which Mr Culleton denies, disputing the signatures.
In a separate news story on Tuesday, the Guardian said Mr Culleton tol he fears for his safety in detention and quoted him describing the situation as “torture”, adding that Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was providing consular assistance and that the embassy in Washington was engaging with the US Department of Homeland Security “at a senior level”.
Ms Kallas, whom Ms Funchion is urging to intervene, has been the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy since 1 December 2024.
