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Seamus Culleton, an illegal immigrant from Ireland was arrested last September by ICE, pursuant to a deportation order after he overstayed his 90-day visa by nearly two decades. Now, for the most cynical of reasons, he is the Left’s new anti-ICE cause celebre.
The pro-Culleton argument is that he had a work visa, a pending green card application, is married to an American and has committed no violent crimes. But none of this changes the fact that his underlying 20-year stay was illegal, and there was an active deportation order against him.
Culleton was given a chance to be taken directly to Ireland, but chose to stay and fight deportation, which he must and should do while in detention. Honestly, the only thing remarkable about this case, and here comes the cynical part, is that he is White and Irish.
A central allegation against Trump’s deportation efforts is that they are essentially racist, that ICE is out there rounding up Brown and Black people based on their skin color. It’s an allegation the Department of Homeland Security vehemently denies and which has not been substantiated.
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Reason magazine’s Nick Gillespie opined on X regarding the detention, “This is appalling and I hope cuts through to the ‘heritage American’ types who otherwise could care less about due process for immigrants.”
The assumption here is that racist supporters of President Donald Trump and his deportation policies will embrace Gillespie’s libertarian pro-illegal immigrant stance to protect a White guy. But it’s absurd, facile, and not happening.
Because there Culleton is in custody, and he’s not the only one. He told Irish radio in a recent interview that, in fact, he and his fellow English-speaking detainees are discriminated against by the mostly Hispanic staffers, who give extra food to Spanish speakers.
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Whether that is true or not, it is clear that the Trump administration is not recognizing any White privilege in this situation. Immigration status, not ethnicity is what matters.
The fact is, that if ICE raided midtown Manhattan, it is likely that dozens of Irish pubs would close instantly.
Now, I love tucking myself into an Irish pub for some shepherd’s pie as much as the next guy, but the law has to be the law, whether a restaurant plays Bad Bunny or the Clancy Brothers. If it employs illegals, they are subject to deportation.
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Culleton is being presented as a kind of “model illegal alien,” leading many to ask, not entirely unreasonably, if the system should let him stay. Maybe it should, but it doesn’t.
If we allow affable Irish bartenders and tradesmen such as Culleton to skirt the rules, then so too can cartel members, or foreign terrorists, so long as they don’t get caught committing crimes. That’s not acceptable.
The Democrats and the political left think they have a winner here because they assume that conservatives are racists and will say, “Oh no, not a White Irish guy! That’s not who we want deported!” But that isn’t happening.
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Part of the purpose of the very public detentions that ICE has engaged in is to scare those in the country illegally into self-deporting, and according to DHS over 2 million did just that in 2025, while the monetary incentive to self deport has been raised to $2,600.
So, an Irish bartender, an Italian bricklayer or a Russian Uber driver in this country illegally have to ask themselves, “Is my immigration status in order, and if not, should I take the money, go home and come back the right way instead of risking detention?”
Over the past three months, including the period of all the mischegas in Minneapolis, Trump’s approval rating has remained remarkably steady after taking about a six-point hit in November. There has been no electoral backlash to deportations.
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As one woman I spoke to in Virginia this week told me, “Sometimes it’s sad. I hated seeing that 5-year-old [who was detained by ICE after his father fled], but we have to have a border.”
If Democrats want to stop the deportations Trump was elected to do, they need to come to Republicans in Congress with a broad immigration plan that has more concessions in it than a VIP suite at the Super Bowl.
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For those in the country illegally, there must be no path to citizenship, hence no eventual voting, and some sort of penalty for being in the country illegally. But frankly, even that is probably not enough at this point.
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Joe Biden and his feckless administration allowed more than 10 million illegals into the country in four years, almost certainly under the impression that it could never be undone, that it was too many people to remove.
Maybe it is too many to actually remove, but Trump was elected to try and try he is, even if the illegal immigrant has a lovely, lilting Irish brogue.
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