[vilhelm_s]

There is a copy of a court order here which gives more legal details [https://www.universalhub.com/files/attachments/2026/culleton...]

> 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.

[insane_dreamer]

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).

[kcplate]

> 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.

[tpm]

> for nearly 16 years he was skirting the system

This is the one thing that pops up often in these cases and my European head can't understand this. Obviously people do this because they can but why does the system allow this? People should be forced to sort out their legal situation one way or another in timely manner, because if something happens after decades (like what's going on now) it will cause lots of damage for many people including families with children. This many people living in legal limbo also encourages lawless behavior of the agencies.

It would be very hard to skirt the system like that in many European countries. Not impossible, some people do it anyway, but that means more or less living completely underground without healthcare, driving license, any sort of banking etc.

[belorn]

There was a similar problem in Sweden. In the old system a person could first seek asylum, get denied, then seek a work visa, get denied, then seek a student visa, get denied and then repeat the process since now enough years has passed. People could also simply go underground for a period of time and then restart the process.

Two law changes was added last year to prevent this. First, any decision remains in force indefinite as long the person remains in the country. The second is that all applications will be running simultaneous and the final decision is given at the same time, with no option to change application afterward if the result returned negative.

The system has some drawbacks, especially if the applicant apply for the wrong thing and don't change it until the decision has been reached, but it removes stalling and delaying tactics.

[tpm]

> In the old system a person could first seek asylum...

Yes but that still means communicating with the institutions and having some sort of legal status. What is en masse happening in the US and to a lesser extent was (or is, not sure, but see for example the Windrush scandal) happening in the UK is that people legally enter the country and have for a time legal standing to reside there, but that lapses, laws change etc., and just nobody cares deeply enough to solve the situation one way or another? And then decades pass and bad things start to happen. But all of this was entirely avoidable and I don't mean just 'not voting for Trump' avoidable, but in a systematic manner.

We could compare that to the situation in Spain where there is a group of illegal migrant workers who are exploited as cheap work force. Now they are given a chance to legalise their status but that too is happening after decades of neglect. Of course there are similar groups in other countries.

[roryirvine]

The Windrush situation is a bit different - the people involved were British Subjects, and didn't need any documentation when they arrived in the UK.

The only thing that changed was the introduction of the "hostile environment" policy in 2012, meaning that everyone (including full UK citizens) must now prove that they have permission to be in the country before getting a job, renting a home, getting a bank account, etc.

The Windrush generation always had that permission, and continued to have it - what they didn't have was the documentation to prove it. And, to make matters worse, the Home Office had disposed of their arrival records so in many cases it became all but impossible for them to get it.

(I know this is a minor quibble, but I think it's worth pointing out that the people affected shouldn't have needed to regularise their situation, because it was never irregular in the first place!)

[belorn]

> We could compare that to the situation in Spain where there is a group of illegal migrant workers who are exploited as cheap work force

The term we should be using here is human trafficking. It is a extremely common practice in construction and farming. As a police officer said here in Sweden in a news article, if they went to a single major construction site the yearly budget for human trafficking violations would be used up for that site alone. It is an open secret that construction sites has a tier based system for workers, where the most illegal workers (and there are different degrees to that) get the most dangerous assignments, least amount of safety equipment, longest hours, and with the lowest pay.

A lot of the calculation on the cost of reduced immigration get based on the resulting increase in costs to construction and farming. It is quite insane how much of the economy is based on exploiting people.

[kcplate]

In the US it’s easier. Certain states will issue you a drivers license even with a questionable immigration status. Once you get that, maintaining it is easy for long periods of time….basically obey the traffic laws and don’t drink and drive take an eye test and written test every 5-7 years and you are golden and keep it.

With a DL check cashing is a snap and it looked like this guy was a building sub-contractor which can and often operate in cash. Cash secured credit cards give you access to plastic. Healthcare doesn’t require an ID and hospitals are compelled by law to treat you if you are in a life threatening situation. Urgent care clinics will gladly accept cash to fix your sniffles.

I think the biggest issue that allows it is just inconsistent enforcement of our immigration laws from administration to administration and the general bureaucratic reset that happens every 4 to 8 years.

[tpm]

Thank you, this is a valuable perspective. So essentially every person that lives this way doesn't pay income tax (and/or possibly other taxes) and the states, and most of the time the federal government too, just don't care?

[kcplate]

If you are getting paid in cash you are only paying income tax if you actually set out to do so. Operating fully in cash is getting harder and harder as we progress to a more cashless society, but right now, still do-able.

The government always cares when it is not getting its share, but enforcement is probably more by accident rather than intention. If you are living modestly and are not calling out any sort of government paper trail to yourself (avoiding government services, police interactions), you are probably not going to attract any investigation.

These sweeps that we are seeing change that a bit. Easier to get ensnared.

[insane_dreamer]

you can still file taxes regardless of your immigration status if you can get an SSN. It used to be easy to do that using your DL. So you have people who have been in the country for many years and have an SSN, pay taxes, etc., but technically are still "undocumented"

[insane_dreamer]

yeah, probably so. but what should matter is whether you're in compliance _now_. But if we do really want to arrest people who were at some point out of compliance in terms of their visa status, let's start with Elon and Melania, and we can talk about going through everyone's else's history and deporting them if they broke the immigration rules.

[kcplate]

Sometimes the details betray the narrative. I believe even more strongly that this guy created his own mess after reading the ruling.

https://www.universalhub.com/files/attachments/2026/culleton...

There are quite a few missing but important details not in the news story. Apparently he complicated matters and put himself into a no win legal situation by choosing against applying for asylum. The “forged” signatures turned out to be a close match to checks that were provided to the court that he admitted to signing. He also admitted to the court that his memory was hazy around that time. There was also no need for immigration officials to forge his name on those documents because if he refused to sign the notice document it had the same legal result as if he did. SOP would be for an immigration official to simply indicate “refusal to sign” on the document.

Unfortunately our laws don’t always protect us from ourselves.

[empath75]

People should know the legal context of this, which is that the Fifth Circuit is out of step with every other circuit in the country on this.

[mikeyouse]

Two judges on the 5th overturned what ~150 other judges have found, including some extremely right wing Trump-appointed ones. Just shambolic.

https://www.lawdork.com/p/fifth-circuit-immigration-detentio...