An Irish man living in the US for almost 20 years has said he is in fear for his life after being detained by immigration officials last year.
Seamus Culleton, originally from Glenmore in Co Kilkenny, was picked up by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents last September, as first reported by the Irish Times, and taken to a detention centre in Texas, almost 4,000km away from his home in Boston.
Speaking to RTÉ's Liveline from the detention centre in El Paso, he said: "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."
Mr Culleton said he is "in fear for my life here".
He described the accommodation as "a bunch of temporary tents", adding "there's probably room for 1,000 detainees in each tent".
"I believe there are five tents," he said.
Mr Culleton said he has no real quality of life and he has been locked in the same room for four-and-a-half months.
"I have barely any outside time, no fresh air, no sunshine. We have two TVs on the wall, there are 72 detainees here in total. We get three meals a day, very very small meals - kid size meals, so everybody is hungry," he said.
Mr Culleton described the conditions there as "filthy" and said the toilets and showers are "completely nasty" and "very rarely cleaned".
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