MAGA Goes to War With U.S. Olympians Brave Enough to Speak Out

He was then detained and held in a cell with several other immigrants before being flown to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Buffalo, New York, where he was asked to sign papers agreeing to his deportation. Culleton said he refused and checked a box that he was contesting his deportation on the grounds that his wife is a U.S. citizen and that he has a valid work permit, thanks to his pending application for permanent resident status filed last April.

But from there, he was taken to another ICE detention center in El Paso, Texas. Culleton said conditions there are “like a concentration camp, absolute hell,” in a phone interview with The Irish Times, as he shares a large, cold, and damp room with over 70 men. Meals are small child-size portions served in the center of the room, and detainees often fight over the food.

Culleton said that he has only left the room for fresh air and exercise less than 12 times in his nearly five-month detention, and is stuck lying on a bed most days. His wife paid a $4,000 bond for his release in November, but nothing happened, and days later, they found that Culleton’s bond had been denied, unlike in most other cases.