A beloved former Republican mayor of a small Kansas town was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for illegally voting and holding public office as an immigrant. Joe Ceballos, 55, arrived in the United States when he was just four years old and has resided in Coldwater, a community of approximately 700 residents, since 1986 when he was a teenager. He has been a legal permanent resident of the U.S. for decades but never obtained citizenship.
Community Pillar
Ceballos is regarded as a pillar of the Coldwater community. He served on the city council for eight years before being elected mayor twice, winning more than 80 percent of the vote in his second election. The former mayor is a proud Republican who voted for Donald Trump in all three of the most recent presidential elections, but he has become a target of the current administration's immigration crackdown.
"I still strongly believe in Trump's immigration laws about, 'Let's get the bad guys out of here.' You know, they're murderers, they killed people, they molested people, let's get them out of here," Ceballos told the New York Times. "But I feel like I don't fit that category. And I feel like that's how they're treating me."
Discovery of Illegal Voting
State and federal officials learned that Ceballos had voted as a noncitizen while he was pursuing citizenship last year. He had passed the civics test, and during his interview, he responded affirmatively when asked if he had ever voted. He told the New York Times that the interviewer's "eyes got real big, and I was like, 'Boy, did I do something wrong?'"
Hours before Ceballos was re-elected mayor, he was charged with voting illegally as a noncitizen in state court. His case drew the attention of national Republicans, who used it as an example of rampant voter fraud. Ceballos immediately resigned from his position as mayor due to the charges, and the Trump administration pledged to deport him if he was convicted.
Guilty Plea and Sentencing
Ceballos pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor counts of disorderly election conduct in the hope that he could move on from the case and continue to live in the community he loves. He told the judge that while in high school, he went on a field trip to the very same courthouse where he was being tried, and the county clerk asked him and other students if they wanted to register to vote, so he did. He said he had no idea it was illegal for him to vote as a noncitizen.
In April, the state court sentenced Ceballos to probation and no jail time. "This is all behind us now," he said at the time. However, on Wednesday, the beloved Coldwater community member was detained by ICE at a federal office building in Wichita, his lawyer, Sarah Balderas, told the New York Times. Ceballos is currently being held at a Kansas jail that contracts with the immigration enforcement agency. His lawyer told the Times that she believes the Trump administration wants to deport her client and that she expects him to receive a summons for immigration court in the near future.
Cultural Identity and Community Support
Ceballos has not been to Mexico since he was four years old, and his Spanish-speaking skills have eroded over the decades he has spent living in the U.S. Culturally, Ceballos is about as American as it gets. He drives a Ram truck and rides a Harley Davidson, speaks with a southern Plains accent, roots for the Dallas Cowboys, and has a workshop next to his house full of tools, car parts, and an old Pepsi machine. He also lives on a pasture raising cattle, works as a lineman for a utility company, and hosts an annual mud run for large trucks.
Rick Beeley, a resident of Coldwater, told the New York Times that Ceballos was the only person who volunteered to take his job decorating the town's Main Street with U.S. flags when he wanted to retire from the role. "I'm a Vietnam vet. He's just as American as I am," Beeley said.
Throughout his legal drama, Ceballos has received overwhelming support from the Coldwater community, who have packed the benches at his hearings and put out ads in the local newspaper asking residents to show up for him. When Ceballos received his probation sentence, the courtroom erupted into applause, and there was a sense of faith that he would be allowed to remain in Coldwater.
Federal Response
Just days after his sentencing, the Department of Homeland Security released a statement highlighting a 1995 battery conviction against Ceballos, as well as paperwork where he falsely claimed to be a U.S. citizen. The former mayor had no other encounters with law enforcement in the more than three decades since then, until he was taken into custody this week. Earlier this month, he received a letter from federal officials asking him to report for "processing" to the Wichita office building where he would be detained by ICE.
In a GoFundMe campaign to help pay for Ceballos's legal defense, set up by his daughter Jewell Ceballos Falletti, she wrote: "Dad never intended to violate the law... Dad truly believed his status as a legal U.S. resident gave him the right to vote. It was an honest mistake, and we pray it doesn't cost him the life in America he has worked so hard to build. For his entire life, Dad has always stepped up to help others in our community."
