Irishman held by ICE for five months detailed exactly what it's like inside detention centre

Seamus Culleton has been living in the US for over 20 years, owns a plastering business in the Boston area and is married to a US citizen.

He says he has no criminal record and hasn't even picked up so much as a parking ticket. He's got a Massachusetts driver's licence and a government-issued work permit, which he obtained as part of his application for a green card that would grant him permanent residency in the US.

None of that stopped Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from arresting him on 9 September last year and holding him in a detention centre in Texas for the past few months.

ICE have been rounding up many people, including children, and keeping them in detention centres for lengthy periods of time, while they've also been threatening people on the streets of US cities, and they have also fatally shot US citizen Renee Good.

Speaking to The Irish Times from inside the detention centre, Culleton said conditions there were 'like a concentration camp', and he described the place as 'absolute hell'.

Seamus Culleton was arrested by ICE last year and his wife Tiffany Smith 'broke down and cried' when she heard (Facebook/Tiffany Smith)

He explained that when he was arrested, he was allowed to call his wife Tiffany, who said she 'broke down and cried', and for the first few days he was held in an overcrowded cell.

The Irishman said he was then transferred to another facility in Buffalo, New York, where he was asked if he would sign up to be deported from the US or if he wished to refuse deportation and contest the arrest.

Opting for the latter, he explained to ICE that he had a valid work permit and was married to a US citizen, but they flew him to Texas and stuck him in a detention centre where he's been for almost five months.

Culleton said he's spent that time locked in the same room with over 70 other men and described the conditions as being cold and damp. He also claimed detainees were always hungry as their meals came in child-sized portions, resulting in fights over food, while the toilet area is 'filthy'.

The man said he was rarely allowed out for exercise, telling The Irish Times he'd been allowed out for fresh air and exercise fewer than 12 times in the almost five months he'd been there, so there was very little to do all day but lie on his bed.

Seamus has spent almost five months in an ICE detention centre in Texas, and said the conditions inside were 'terrible' (Paul Ratje/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

There was a hearing in November in which a judge ordered that he be released if his wife paid a $4,000 bond; she did, but Seamus still hasn't been let go, and The Irish Times reports that the US government had denied the bond without offering an initial explanation.

His legal representatives appealed the case, and two ICE agents claimed Seamus had signed documents saying he agreed to be deported, which contradicts his version of events.

A judge said ICE's documents contained irregularities but sided with them anyway, though the man has argued that if there is video evidence of his interview in Buffalo, it will show any signatures on documents indicating he agreed to be deported were not made by him.

Now he's stuck in limbo in a situation he describes as 'psychological torture', claiming people in the detention centre once again tried to get him to sign a deportation order, but he continued to refuse.

LADbible Group contacted ICE for comment.