I popped this into “General” because I think it’s a human rights issue, not a political one. The last link is an interview with the victim on the Irish national broadcaster.
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There seems little doubt that the conditions in which this man is being held are atrocious.
However, one must not forget that by his own admission he has lived in the US unlawfully for 16 years and did not enter the US, nor subsequently obtain, the correct visa allowing him to marry a US citizen.
The relationship between State and Federal governments is a total minefield when it comes to Visas and marrying a US citizen within the USA, and even the Customs and Border Patrol staff will give you differing views according to who you are talking to.
It’s an issue to which I can personally attest, and one which has been ongoing for at least the last 20 years.
The facts are that an illegal immigrant to the USA can obtain a work permit, pay both Federal and State taxes, and even join the US military, but that person still remains an illegal immigrant subject to deportation. The question of whether such a person can lawfully marry has a different answer in different States, but certainly that marriage confers no right of residency.
It’s a totally messed up system, and always has been, but it is only now with the excesses of ICE that the matter comes into the public eye.
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When asked at the Buffalo facility to sign a form agreeing to deportation, Culleton said he refused and instead ticked a box expressing a wish to contest his arrest, which he intended to do on the grounds that he was married to a US citizen, Tiffany Smyth, and had a valid work permit.
At a November hearing a judge approved his release on a $4,000 bond, which Smyth paid, but authorities continued to detain Culleton, initially without explanation.
When his attorney appealed to a federal court, two ICE agents said that in Buffalo Culleton had signed documents agreeing to be deported. Culleton said he did not agree and that the signatures were not his. “My whole life is here. I worked so hard to build my business. My wife is here.”
The judge noted irregularities in ICE’s court documents but sided with the agency. Under US law Culleton cannot appeal but he wants handwriting experts to examine the signatures and believes a video of his interview with ICE in Buffalo would prove he refused to sign
Wow…! I’d have expected this in Russia not America 
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I can understand why you have made that comparison.
Please note that as I am currently in the USA myself, I am unable to comment further at this time.
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Coward!
From bad to worse. The NYT reports today that the global warming deniers in the US are within touching distance of dismantling all the anti-pollution legislation
Trump Allies Near ‘Total Victory’ in Wiping Out U.S. Climate Regulation
A small group of conservative activists has worked for 16 years to stop all government efforts to fight climate change. Their efforts seem poised to pay off.
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I remember reading that there are a lot of states and cities engaged in the battle against global warming. I don’t recall the details but it was encouraging that the orange idiot didn’t have the power to stop them.
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I’m not sure they can make their policies stick. There have been numerous examples recently of state and municipality policy and legislation reversed or thrown out by Federal Gov/The Supreme Court.
Some states/cities have outlawed the introduction of State Troopers into their localities. These edicts have been simply ignored or have been rejected by the SCOTUS.
Trump has declared that elections should be ‘nationalised’. Currently they are run by the states. Trump wants them run by … him.
Putin coached him well.
The cause of the Civil War in the USA was not so much about slavery or emancipation but more about States’ Rights. In other words the right of individual states to make their own policies.
Could it ever be a slogan resurrected again in the current circumstances? Or is that too far fetched now?
Perhaps it can’t happen because there are substantial minorities in every state one way or the other.
But would be interesting to know if, before the Civil War, the question was raised as a possibility, or an impossibility. 
Also I seem to remember somewhere that permission has been given in California for a CalifExit referendum in 2026, I think. Permission within the State I mean, not from a Federal source.
He has also said he will only accept the result if he likes itthe election was fair.
Who gets to decide that? Why Trump, of course.
I have to say i thought of that as well. Years of doing SFA to regularise his situation. It’s the conditions I was really drawing attention to. If he had just been plonked on a plane back to Ireland I don’t think I’d have much sympathy.
If anything does go wrong Robert, would you give Seamus our best wishes 
Did anyone watch the Superbowl half-time show? We loved it.
That says it all.
You could be in Iran and use the same reasoning.
I currently live in Minneapolis-St.Paul where ICE has been assaulting and terrorizing residents, whether they have legal status or not. Two residents were shot to death by them and as of yet no one has been held accountable. Due to most major US media groups bending their knee to whatever our orange dictator wants, most of what is happening isn’t even being covered.
This isn’t about immigrant status, our entire state only has 6 million people in a land mass the size of England -Scotland-Wales combined. Minneapolis has slightly over half a million people and 600 police officers; 3,000 masked, armed, thugs in full combat gear were sent here to punish a city and state that didn’t vote for the menace. In fact the US Attorney General Pam Bondi sent what was basically an extortion letter to our state demanding private voter information be turned over and in exchange ICE would be withdrawn from our state. It clearly illustrates this has nothing to do with any real immigration problem here.
Every day ICE commits violence against us and no one in our government seems to have the spine to stop this insanity.
Photos are from ICE intentionally smashing into moving vehicles near my place of work today. A person may have been killed but since they were put, non-moving, on a stretcher and whisked away to god knows where, we don’t know.
It isn’t getting better here, it’s getting worse.
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We have friends in Minneapolis, they’re very concerned. Are residents banding together?
Thank you for that post from the front line so to speak, keep watching and reporting, but stay safe. 
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Who would you expect to stop it? It’s a feature, not a bug. It is punishment to MN for voting against the Orangeman 3 times. Only the executive branch can stop it, and it has adequate cover from POTUS and so far, the underlying courts with a few exceptions. Congress could stop it by cutting off funding . Will that happen?
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Sadly the downside of “winner takes all”, FPTP systems is that only the ruling party has any meaningful power.
The difference in the US now is that all the norms of behavior have been broken in the last few years, I would argue since Mitch McConnell refused to seat Obama’s last SCOTUS pick. Prior to that, the system mostly worked because there was decorum and the feeling of ‘what goes around comes around’'.
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