I also strongly suggest people read the ACLU's report Resistance, Retaliation, Repression: Two Years in California Immigration Detention. It's from before Trump 2 but no doubt the issues raised in here have only gotten worse
- forced labor in order to afford to eat. The $1/day "Voluntary Work Program" is necessary to afford enough food and there is retaliation if you refuse (including solitary confinement). CoreCivic sells your labor
- dozens of documented deaths from forced labor and medical neglect
- extensive use of solitary confinement often for "minor disciplinary infractions or as a form of retaliation for participating in hunger strikes or for submitting complaints"
Add to that : "Culleton said that when he was arrested he was carrying a Massachusetts driving licence and a valid work permit issued as part of an application for a green card that he initiated in April 2025. He has a final interview remaining". Such bullshit
People will just flag it instead, sadly. Concentration camps in full view (or rather, the tip of the iceberg) and people will instead bury their heads.
> The Fifth Circuit has held that the VWP statute “‘unambiguously’ limits an alien’s means of contesting removal solely to an application for asylum.” McCarthy v. Mukasey, 555 F.3d 459, 460 (5th Cir. 2009) (citation omitted). And once an individual violates the terms of the VWP by remaining in the United States for more than ninety days, the individual is no longer entitled to
contest removal on any other basis. Id. at 462. This is true even when an individual has a pending adjustment of status application on the basis of their marriage to a U.S. citizen. Id. at 460, 462.
> Culleton concedes he is removable under the VWP. Reply 10. But he argues that
because USCIS accepted and began processing his adjustment of status application, he is entitled to due process protections in its fair adjudication. Id. at 9. The Fifth Circuit has foreclosed this very argument, reasoning that the VWP waiver includes a waiver of due process rights. See Mukasey, 555 F.3d at 462. And “[t]he fact that [Culleton] applied for an adjustment of status before the DHS issued its notice of removal is of no consequence.” Id.
It's shocking that the court could determine this when the whole process of getting permanent residency involves an adjustment of status that allows you to remain in the country even though your visa has expired so long as your application is being processed (which can take a very long time). You just can't leave the country. So to arrest someone while they are following the steps they're supposed to be following, is similar to entrapment (do X and you'll be ok, then they do X and get arrested).
> So to arrest someone while they are following the steps they're supposed to be following
I think the issue complicating this man’s situation is that it appears when you dig into the details that for nearly 16 years he was skirting the system and only tried getting his legal situation resolved just a few months prior to his detainment. He is choosing to fight it which is resulting in the long detention.
Personally I believe we need some legal carve outs for this type of situation, but there is simply no doubt that this guy made a series of poor decisions prior to April of 2025 that has created the situation he is in.
We have seen many stories like this. Some doubt the authenticity, but what is evident is that these things are happening again and again with impunity. Perhaps you don't think the situation is bad enough, or the details are exaggerated.
However, the fact that a man can be pulled of the street despite having legal status should be alarming. You don't need to care about the Irishman, but you should care about justice.
Immigration enforcement is a hot topic today hence why you see lots of such stories. The reality is the federal gov has been aggressive in its enforcement for decades. ICE took a break during the Obama and Biden years for some reason. Might explain younger people are surprised by the renewed enforcement.
Remember that scene in the show Seinfeld where Babu Bhatt is taken from his house for expired immigration papers? That was in 1993.
> The reality is the federal gov has been aggressive in its enforcement for decades. ICE took a break during the Obama and Biden years for some reason.
ICE was created in 2002 (24 years ago). "The Obama and Biden years" make up a full half of ICE's existence.
> he reality is the federal gov has been aggressive in its enforcement for decades.
Sure there has been enforcement, but nothing that comes even close to what we're seeing today (except for Trump 1.0 when CBP were separating parents and children and putting them in cages; today we have that plus a whole lot more including murdering citizen observers). ICE should never have been created (more of the fallout of the Americans surrendering so much of their civil liberties while panicked about 9/11), but at least it was a regular accountable law enforcement org and not a paramilitary terrorizing American cities (which technically makes it a domestic terrorism org).
He overstayed the 90 day fiancé visa. Got married eventually. That should have triggered a 5-10 year bar from re-entering the US.
He could have applied for legal status immediately and it is usually waived if you pass the interview process.
Instead, 20 years later he applied for a green card to get a temporary work permit which is usually granted eligible while applying for permanent residency. So he had no work permit or valid status for 20 years.
5 months in detention seems like a long time. They offered to deport him but he refused and supposedly DHS forged his signatures.
It’s a messy case but he could have avoided the detention if he willingly asked to be deported immediately then fight for immigration status from where he has citizenship.
I don’t think these ends justify the means. It sounds like the government failed early on in what seemed like a benign infraction, and now it is deciding to punish him for it. That’s like getting away with not returning a library book, and then being arrested and taken to prison for thousands in overdue fees when I try to return it later. That’s arbitrary and excessive, hopefully found to be a violation of due process, and should not be defended.
> He overstayed the 90 day fiancé visa. Got married eventually. That should have triggered a 5-10 year bar from re-entering the US.
> He could have applied for legal status immediately and it is usually waived if you pass the interview process.
"Why do people come here illegally? Do it properly!"
I immigrated here from Australia. It would have been cheaper, and faster, to come here on the VWP, get married, and apply for forgiveness, than to do it legally.
Look at our current first lady. Comes here as a working model on a tourist visa. That should also have triggered a ban from re-entering the US.
It's all just such a mess. Revisiting this point:
> He could have applied for legal status immediately and it is usually waived if you pass the interview process.
I got divorced (we had a sincere intent, but we acknowledged we got married sooner than we would if it wasn't for logistics), and missed one of the dates for AOS. To be clear, at that point it's not just that they say "Oh, whatever", it's that the onus is on USCIS to show fraudulent intent. We'd already had some fairly detailed interviews, separately. "What day does the garbage go out? Who usually takes it out? Who is your auto insurance through? What cars do you own between you? What was the last major update done to your home?" and so on, to demonstrate that you'd been living together in a genuine relationship.
As presented, that dude's story as makes little sense to anyone familiar with the immigration process. There is more to this story, I wish the reporter would just tell it.
If it surprises you, then you haven't paid attention to the blatantly unconstitutional actions of DHS in this administration. The purpose is terror and filling deportation quotas, not enforcing immigration law.
So that's the narrative. But if you actually dig into any of these stories you'll quickly find that there is more to them and they are all presented in a very one-sided fashion.
The guy from the article would have been deported by Biden's ICE too.
Additional context: he claims ICE forged his signature on legal documents.
He should be free while the case proceeds. Seems like exactly the kind of person who is not a flight risk, because the entire reason he’s contesting it is because he’s built a life he doesn’t want to leave.
This is not true. You do not need to be a US resident to register a company, and anyone own shares in a company. There are a variety of visa options, and ways to navigate the process that will work.
I didn't say you needed to be a US resident to register a company.
I said that most pre-GC work-permits (e.g. H1B) don't allow you to own a US-based business. If you're here on a work-permit, they (the govt.) expect you to be an employee of your sponsor, they don't want you to start a business.
To your point,
one can be an investor in a US company without having a US visa/residence/work-permit. Although, to open a business without living in the US, only a handful of states allow this (e.g., Delaware, Wyoming, Nevada).
However, once again, if you are in the US on a work-permit, you need to follow the rules of the work-permit. The rules applicable to non-citizens who are not living in the US on a work-permit may be different.
You are mistaken. Plenty of people own businesses in the US even as foreigners. I don't even have to step into that country to open one, and also not for a transfer of ownership/shares.
My opinion is probably not but this is ultimately a political conversation.
The article is extremely light on details but fact he doesn't have a Green Card/Lawful Permanent Resident yet would indicate that at some point of his time in United States, he was illegally present, probably for a while.
Sure, he's on path, MAYBE (that's up to immigration courts), to legal status but he's not quite there yet and it's one of those "Are we going to forgive past transgressions?"
If we are talking hypotheticals here, anything can be possible. Subject could be an illegitimate direct descendent of Thomas Jefferson, which would make this entire case uniquely newsworthy.
Can't you see that they are using immigration questions as an excuse to consolidate power that exceeds immigration enforcement by a large margin? The ability to detain lawful workers or pull people off the street without a warrant from a judge & hold them illegally for a significant duration can become political retaliation or terror tool and a racial profiling vehicle very quickly.
And more over, they basically have proved that the law has no sufficient ability to actually enforce court orders on the ground when the administrative branch is firmly on not obeying them. Even worse, the public opinion has been just mildly annoyed by this - by mildly I mean that only some people decided to bring themselves to the streets, separately and only on the weekends or a single day in most cases.
Normalizing paramilitary forces in US cities/areas, especially Democrat-leaning ones. See also early actions of deploying National Guard units (from Southern areas into Northern ones).
It is a salve for the status wound the dimished social and economic station poor white males found themselves in after the civil rights act and the deindustrialization.
It assumes that "I deserve the benefits I or my family once had because I see someone else that now has them."
It sees the social and economic territory as fundamental limited and wants to secure a living space within them.
And it does so by binding to the state and using the state to create that void so that they can regain what they feel was lost.
It must feel amazing, like psychic fentanyl to see what's going down.
You know the revanchist militias who would openly hate everything about our country, while claiming to be "patriots" ? You know how they've been awfully quiet lately ? It's about putting them in charge, at least as far as the bottom-up.
The top-down is something like destroying the United States and subjugating what remains, with many foreign interests aligned here - Russia, China, Big Tech eager to create their surveillance society, religious fundamentalists who just want the world to burn so their ideologies might regain relevance, etc.
Readit News
- Unsafe conditions in detention.
- Detained people fighting over food (due to insufficient amount).
- A fake signature(!). Violating a judge's orders.
- Multiple US Constitution violations (which, yes, does apply to non-citizens/work-visa holders/even illegal immigrants).
This is a "hero case," but if this is happening here, imagine what people with less financial means and interest from the media are going through.
https://www.aclunorcal.org/publications/resistance-retaliati...
Some of those issues:
- forced labor in order to afford to eat. The $1/day "Voluntary Work Program" is necessary to afford enough food and there is retaliation if you refuse (including solitary confinement). CoreCivic sells your labor
- dozens of documented deaths from forced labor and medical neglect
- extensive use of solitary confinement often for "minor disciplinary infractions or as a form of retaliation for participating in hunger strikes or for submitting complaints"
People will just flag it instead, sadly. Concentration camps in full view (or rather, the tip of the iceberg) and people will instead bury their heads.
> The Fifth Circuit has held that the VWP statute “‘unambiguously’ limits an alien’s means of contesting removal solely to an application for asylum.” McCarthy v. Mukasey, 555 F.3d 459, 460 (5th Cir. 2009) (citation omitted). And once an individual violates the terms of the VWP by remaining in the United States for more than ninety days, the individual is no longer entitled to contest removal on any other basis. Id. at 462. This is true even when an individual has a pending adjustment of status application on the basis of their marriage to a U.S. citizen. Id. at 460, 462.
> Culleton concedes he is removable under the VWP. Reply 10. But he argues that because USCIS accepted and began processing his adjustment of status application, he is entitled to due process protections in its fair adjudication. Id. at 9. The Fifth Circuit has foreclosed this very argument, reasoning that the VWP waiver includes a waiver of due process rights. See Mukasey, 555 F.3d at 462. And “[t]he fact that [Culleton] applied for an adjustment of status before the DHS issued its notice of removal is of no consequence.” Id.
I think the issue complicating this man’s situation is that it appears when you dig into the details that for nearly 16 years he was skirting the system and only tried getting his legal situation resolved just a few months prior to his detainment. He is choosing to fight it which is resulting in the long detention.
Personally I believe we need some legal carve outs for this type of situation, but there is simply no doubt that this guy made a series of poor decisions prior to April of 2025 that has created the situation he is in.
https://www.lawdork.com/p/fifth-circuit-immigration-detentio...
However, the fact that a man can be pulled of the street despite having legal status should be alarming. You don't need to care about the Irishman, but you should care about justice.
Remember that scene in the show Seinfeld where Babu Bhatt is taken from his house for expired immigration papers? That was in 1993.
Perhaps we've been living a lie this whole thing.
This is simply not true.
ICE was created in 2002 (24 years ago). "The Obama and Biden years" make up a full half of ICE's existence.
Sure there has been enforcement, but nothing that comes even close to what we're seeing today (except for Trump 1.0 when CBP were separating parents and children and putting them in cages; today we have that plus a whole lot more including murdering citizen observers). ICE should never have been created (more of the fallout of the Americans surrendering so much of their civil liberties while panicked about 9/11), but at least it was a regular accountable law enforcement org and not a paramilitary terrorizing American cities (which technically makes it a domestic terrorism org).
He could have applied for legal status immediately and it is usually waived if you pass the interview process.
Instead, 20 years later he applied for a green card to get a temporary work permit which is usually granted eligible while applying for permanent residency. So he had no work permit or valid status for 20 years.
5 months in detention seems like a long time. They offered to deport him but he refused and supposedly DHS forged his signatures.
It’s a messy case but he could have avoided the detention if he willingly asked to be deported immediately then fight for immigration status from where he has citizenship.
"Why do people come here illegally? Do it properly!"
I immigrated here from Australia. It would have been cheaper, and faster, to come here on the VWP, get married, and apply for forgiveness, than to do it legally.
Look at our current first lady. Comes here as a working model on a tourist visa. That should also have triggered a ban from re-entering the US.
It's all just such a mess. Revisiting this point:
> He could have applied for legal status immediately and it is usually waived if you pass the interview process.
I got divorced (we had a sincere intent, but we acknowledged we got married sooner than we would if it wasn't for logistics), and missed one of the dates for AOS. To be clear, at that point it's not just that they say "Oh, whatever", it's that the onus is on USCIS to show fraudulent intent. We'd already had some fairly detailed interviews, separately. "What day does the garbage go out? Who usually takes it out? Who is your auto insurance through? What cars do you own between you? What was the last major update done to your home?" and so on, to demonstrate that you'd been living together in a genuine relationship.
The guy from the article would have been deported by Biden's ICE too.
Usually a pre-Green-Card work permit doesn't allow that (you need a GC to own a business).
This article is an example of sophisticated co-mingling of facts and omissions, designed to obfuscate the context.
Additional context: he claims ICE forged his signature on legal documents.
He should be free while the case proceeds. Seems like exactly the kind of person who is not a flight risk, because the entire reason he’s contesting it is because he’s built a life he doesn’t want to leave.
I didn't say you needed to be a US resident to register a company.
I said that most pre-GC work-permits (e.g. H1B) don't allow you to own a US-based business. If you're here on a work-permit, they (the govt.) expect you to be an employee of your sponsor, they don't want you to start a business.
To your point,
one can be an investor in a US company without having a US visa/residence/work-permit. Although, to open a business without living in the US, only a handful of states allow this (e.g., Delaware, Wyoming, Nevada).
However, once again, if you are in the US on a work-permit, you need to follow the rules of the work-permit. The rules applicable to non-citizens who are not living in the US on a work-permit may be different.
You are mistaken. Plenty of people own businesses in the US even as foreigners. I don't even have to step into that country to open one, and also not for a transfer of ownership/shares.
You seem to be searching for the slightest absurdity to justify any of this happening.
The article is extremely light on details but fact he doesn't have a Green Card/Lawful Permanent Resident yet would indicate that at some point of his time in United States, he was illegally present, probably for a while.
Sure, he's on path, MAYBE (that's up to immigration courts), to legal status but he's not quite there yet and it's one of those "Are we going to forgive past transgressions?"
Gosh, we have very different ideas of policy.
Citation needed.
and historically documentable
there's probably good reason he's writing 5 Million dollar checks a pop to various PACs
And more over, they basically have proved that the law has no sufficient ability to actually enforce court orders on the ground when the administrative branch is firmly on not obeying them. Even worse, the public opinion has been just mildly annoyed by this - by mildly I mean that only some people decided to bring themselves to the streets, separately and only on the weekends or a single day in most cases.
It is a salve for the status wound the dimished social and economic station poor white males found themselves in after the civil rights act and the deindustrialization.
It assumes that "I deserve the benefits I or my family once had because I see someone else that now has them."
It sees the social and economic territory as fundamental limited and wants to secure a living space within them.
And it does so by binding to the state and using the state to create that void so that they can regain what they feel was lost.
It must feel amazing, like psychic fentanyl to see what's going down.
The top-down is something like destroying the United States and subjugating what remains, with many foreign interests aligned here - Russia, China, Big Tech eager to create their surveillance society, religious fundamentalists who just want the world to burn so their ideologies might regain relevance, etc.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/toWTEuEPDXigwwr78
https://maps.apple.com has higher resolution imagery, but note the location is mismarked (the old facility was by the airport).