![\"ICE](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9fc512b7-c762-4a24-8c60-e521145b02b4.jpg\")
<\/p>\nEdward Lee Stinton, known as Lee, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers on June 12 in Key West, Florida, after a police traffic stop.<\/p>\n
Alliance Party MP Sorcha Eastwood, who raised a Point of Order in Westminster on Wednesday, said that the life he built \u201chas all come to an end\u201d under \u201cthe most awful circumstances\u201d.<\/p>\n
Speaker of the House Judith Cummins said she has not been made aware of any requests for a statement at this time.<\/p>\n
Ms Eastwood told the Belfast Telegraph that her team has urged the Foreign Office to support Lee, who deserves \u201cdignity\u201d and \u201cfairness\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s impossible to comprehend the deep distress this situation has caused \u2014 not just to Lee himself, but also to his parents, his partner, his family and friends,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have heard some extremely concerning reports about Lee\u2019s welfare and treatment whilst he has been detained by ICE, and my team and I are raising these concerns directly with the Foreign Secretary.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the heart of this is a very simple truth: human rights are non-negotiable. International law applies everywhere and to everyone, and there can be no exceptions to that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must never lose sight of the person at the centre of this. Lee deserves dignity, fairness and to know we are all behind him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former British Hairdresser of the Year was making his morning commute to work at a hair salon at the time of his arrest.<\/p>\n
Lee was taken almost four hours from Key West to a crowded detention centre in Miami, where he has remained.<\/p>\n
Lee\u2019s father said that his son was on track to obtain a Green Card and had held the necessary papers.<\/p>\n
The 46-year-old is currently being held in Krome Detention Centre, which made headlines last month after detainees were seen signalling \u2018SOS\u2019, prompting concerns over conditions.<\/p>\n
Lee moved to Florida over six years ago after marrying his US-born partner DeVaun Davis.<\/p>\n
DeVaun told the Keys Weekly of the poor conditions his partner has experienced at the detention centre.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo beds. One wooden bench. People slept on the floor. Lee is a vegan and didn\u2019t get any vegan food until he\u2019d gone without eating for four days,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t until Congressman Carlos Gimenez announced he was planning to visit Krome the next day that Lee finally got moved into a pod with a cot and fewer people and finally got a change of clothes and vegan food.\u201d<\/p>\n
DeVaun confirmed that Lee had overstayed his visa seven years ago but that it was never flagged as he reapplied for residency and that \u201cthings were proceeding\u201d.<\/p>\n
A GoFundMe page set up by Lee\u2019s mum, Elaine, has seen almost \u00a33k raised due to the \u201castronomical amount\u201d of costs, which she \u201cstruggles\u201d to meet, required to support her son.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
ICE (Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Fears bonfire could cut power supply to Belfast hospital<\/p>\n
The hairdresser is just one of at least 56,000 ICE detainees that have been jailed so far as authorities work tirelessly to fulfil President Trump\u2019s vow to deport millions.<\/p>\n
Notable figures detained include a New York mayoral candidate, Brand Lander, as well as renowned TikTok personality Khaby Lame, with officers averaging seven arrests a day.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s administration has additionally passed a \u201cmegabill\u201d to the tune of $170bn for border and immigration enforcement to be spent in the next three and a half years.<\/p>\n
The crackdown has sparked a spate of protests across the US, seeing crowds clashing with law enforcement, and military being called to the streets to assume order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Edward Lee Stinton, known as Lee, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers on June 12…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[6416,2378,23855,49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-251315","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-alliance-party","9":"tag-belfast","10":"tag-sorcha-eastwood","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-us","13":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114824455720263467","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}