{"id":1837,"date":"2026-02-11T08:11:32","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T08:11:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=1837"},"modified":"2026-02-11T08:11:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T08:11:32","slug":"trump-ice-crackdown-turns-irishmans-american-dream-into-detention-nightmare-us-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=1837","title":{"rendered":"Trump ICE crackdown turns Irishman’s American dream into detention nightmare | US News"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Seamus Culleton exists in two places – his wife’s memory and a detention centre in Texas.<\/p>\n

Tiffany Smyth had a handful of photographs to show me, illustrating their life together. Sunbathing on a beach, posing with their two dogs, celebrating their engagement with radiant smiles.<\/p>\n

But the hope illustrated in those snapshots was snatched away one afternoon five months ago.<\/p>\n

Seamus, 38, was at a building supplies store in Boston when ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents detained him.<\/p>\n

Via Buffalo, New York, he eventually ended up at Camp East Montana, El Paso, Texas.<\/p>\n

He has described it “like a modern-day concentration camp\u2026 horrible and filthy.”<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Housed with 70 other detainees in one tent, he said he feared for his own life. It was striking to hear his Irish accent on the phoneline from there.<\/p>\n

“If it can happen to me\u2026 it can kind of happen to anyone,” he told me.<\/p>\n

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\n Seamus says he was living a ‘normal life’ in America
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Living in the US for nearly 18 years, he had, in his words, “lived a normal life”.<\/p>\n

“Just working hard, staying out of trouble, I wasn’t a big party guy, just spending time with my wife and my dogs,” he said.<\/p>\n

Tiffany recalled the moment her husband phoned her to say he had been detained.<\/p>\n

“He says ICE picked him up, and I had a million questions\u2026 where are they taking you?<\/p>\n

“And he said, no, they’re not telling me anything. I’ll call you when I can, and then the phone hung up. I didn’t hear from him for four or five days,” she said.<\/p>\n

Fighting through the tears, she described his situation as “hard to believe”.<\/p>\n

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