Has there ever been a worse time for the Irish to venerate and celebrate the President of the United States?

With human rights being eroded, innocent people being shot dead for daring to stand up to armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on US streets, and shackled prisoners being renditioned through Shannon Airport, this seems to be a strange time to decide to honour the first citizen of the US.

But it’s happening in Galway this week.

Right now, an Irish man who has been living in the United States for almost two decades is sitting in a detention centre in Texas, almost 4,000km from his Boston home.

Even though he had a valid work permit and no criminal record, he was arrested in a random immigration sweep after going to buy supplies at a hardware store.

Speaking from the detention centre in El Paso, Seamus Culleton, from Co. Kilkenny, told RTÉ radio this week that he is in fear for his life.

The country in which the youth wing of the Fine Gael party, who have been in power for nearly 14 years, produced a poster to say that they “stand with Israel”. Funny how they have never stood with the oppressed people of Palestine, whose land has been taken over by colonisers.

“You don’t know what’s going to happen on a day-to-day basis. You don’t know if there’s going to be riots, you don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s a nightmare down here,” he told the ‘Liveline’ talk show.

He has been locked up in the same tiny cell for four and a half months, living in what he describes as “filthy” conditions, getting very little time to exercise, and trying to survive on three tiny meals per day.

Seamus is married to an American woman and does not have any convictions in either the US or Ireland. He has a work permit and had almost completed the process of getting a Green Card when he was seized by ICE agents in Boston.

“It’s just a torture, I just don’t know how much more I can take.”

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