Irish PM Micheál Martin is wary of provoking the U.S. administration, but behind-the-scenes efforts to free Seamus Culleton from ICE custody have proven fruitless, an Irish official tells POLITICO.
DUBLIN — Ireland will do “everything we can” to free an Irish citizen who has been confined for nearly five months in a U.S. detention camp in Texas, Prime Minister Micheál Martin vowed Tuesday.
The high-profile case of Seamus Culleton — who was seized by agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in September as he left a Home Depot hardware store in Boston — is complicating Ireland’s hopes of keeping relations with Washington upbeat ahead of Martin’s planned St. Patrick’s Day visit next month.
Ireland prizes its exceptional political access to the White House and Capitol Hill tied to the annual March 17 Irish national holiday, when the Irish leader typically presents his U.S. counterpart with warm words and a bowl of shamrock. The festivities have become diplomatic minefields in Trump’s era, however, given the contribution of U.S. multinationals to Ireland’s economic strength and record-breaking tax revenues — benefits that Trump has threatened to roll back.
Culleton has been Ireland’s top news story since the Irish Times on Monday reported on his case and on the allegedly appalling conditions he faces in Camp East Montana, the ICE facility inside Fort Bliss army base near El Paso.
The same day, Culleton appeared live on air on Ireland’s RTÉ radio to describe conditions of overcrowding, filth, disease, hunger and violence — and a personal fear, now set aside, that speaking out might make matters even worse for him.
“I definitely am afraid of rotting away here. It feels like I’m just stuck and there’s no way out,” Culleton told RTÉ in an hourlong broadcast that included live interviews with his American wife in Boston and his sister back in Waterford, Ireland.
Culleton admitted having overstayed his U.S. visa two decades ago, but said he’s been pursuing legal residency via his ongoing application for a green card, buttressed by his valid work permit, his employment as a plasterer and his April 2025 marriage. He’s one of at least 10,000 undocumented Irish citizens who have lived, often for decades, in the United States.
Opposition leaders raised Culleton’s case Tuesday on the floor of Dáil Éireann, Ireland’s parliament — and accused Martin of tolerating human rights abuses of Irish citizens for the sake of keeping Trump sweet on economic matters.
“You must commit now on the floor of the Dáil to pulling out every stop, using every diplomatic lever, to secure Seamus’ release. No delays, no waiting for St. Patrick’s Day,” charged Ivana Bacik, leader of the opposition Labour Party.
Martin insisted that while he had learned of Culleton’s five-month detention only on Monday, officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs had been liaising since October with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security — both in Washington and via Ireland’s consulate in Austin, Texas — to seek Culleton’s release and his acceptance as a legal American resident.
Martin said Culleton was one of “five or six” Irish citizens currently in ICE custody, and that he hopes to see all freed. But he cautioned that such lobbying needs to happen away from the cameras, arguing that public criticism of Trump’s policies was counterproductive.
“We will do everything we can to help Seamus Culleton. But we have to do it in a way that can really help him and in a way that can be effective for him,” Martin said.
“We can’t promise, because we don’t control American migration law or practice. But we can engage. We have and we will,” he said. “Let’s not do anything that could make that even more difficult. This cannot be resolved in the public domain.”
Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs declined to comment, saying it couldn’t discuss specific cases.
A senior government official — speaking to POLITICO on condition of anonymity citing diplomatic sensitivities — said Irish efforts to seek clarity from ICE have been fruitless.
“We do not fully understand why he’s been held in such conditions for so long, never mind why he was sent thousands of miles away from his home in Boston. It seems deliberately cruel and coercive,” the official said. “We continue to hope for a reasonable resolution. Getting concrete, consistent information has been difficult.”
Culleton said ICE officials had repeatedly pressed him to sign documents consenting to be deported, but he has refused.
“Seamus Culleton is married, he’s been there for 20 years, he has a business,” Martin told lawmakers. Helping Culleton gain his freedom and return to his Boston life, he said, “is the ultimate objective.”
Neither the U.S. Department of Homeland Security nor ICE responded to requests for comment.
Eric Bazail-Eimil contributed to this report.