Former Kansas mayor who voted as a noncitizen now ordered to ICE detention
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
COLDWATER, Kansas — The former mayor of Coldwater, Kansas, has been ordered to report to federal immigration detention office after pleading guilty to voting illegally as a noncitizen.
Former Mayor Joe Ceballos has been ordered to report to the Immigration Customs Enforcement Detention Office in Wichita Wednesday morning. Whether he will ultimately be removed will be decided by immigration officials. His attorney is not confident he will avoid detainment Wednesday.
Ceballos last month pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor charges for voting without being a U.S. citizen. He is a permanent legal resident, but not a citizen.
Ceballos could be deported for what he called “ an honest mistake .” Ceballos said he thought permanent residency meant he was allowed to vote.
Ceballos immigrated from Mexico when he was 4 years old in 1975 and has lived in the U.S. ever since. He said he doesn’t speak Spanish anymore.
Jess Hoeme was his attorney during the voting fraud case and calls the detention order a “travesty of justice.”
“It's almost like a crime against humanity, almost — moving someone from their home that they've built for 45 years,” Home told the Kansas News Service.
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach said in a statement back in November when announcing the charges against Ceballos that “voting by noncitizens, including both legal and illegal aliens, is a very real problem.” .
Kobach and a spokesperson for ICE had not responded to questions at the time of publication.
Ceballos said last year he is “pretty sure” he voted for Kobach and Trump because he always voted Republican like his friends did.
Leading up to Ceballos' hearing, Kobach amended the charges from felony to misdemeanor due to a lack of intent.
Ceballos was well-known in his community as someone who regularly fixes things around town. He is a business owner and local cattle rancher. He was elected twice after encouragement from the community, despite not having his citizenship.
Comanche County District Court Judge Sidney R. Thomas sentenced Ceballos to one year of probation with a six-month jail sentence that is suspended. Ceballos also agreed to pay a $2,000 fine plus court fees.
Hoeme said Ceballos is likely to be detained but he believes the charges should not affect his legal immigration status.
“It's not anything that immigration can use to remove him,” Hoeme said.
Hoeme said that despite that, he is not confident Ceballos will avoid detainment.
Ceballos was actively pursuing his citizenship since February of last year. During one of the interviews, Ceballos said he had voted in elections in the past.
Hoeme thinks that is why the Department of Homeland Security is seeking to detain Ceballos. He said he hoped Kobach would step in, but was admittedly frustrated.
“He could help us. He could say, ‘no, this is not justice’,” Hoeme said. “This is 1935 Germany.”
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Here we go again. Another Republican caught voting illegally. How does someone become a Republican mayor and not know that they are not legally allowed to vote? How does a green card holder born in Mexico support the Republican Party, period? He must be feeling pretty stupid about that now.
He's a republican. Not known for informing themselves on the constitution or common sense
oops, his skin color precludes him from receiving the typical hand slap and no time in jail reserved for other republican voter fraudsters ...
If only he was a born in Russia …
... or south africa, on the white side ...
I thought illegals weren't voting in US elections?
We do need to protect democracy from Republican voter fraud!
Don't play partisan bullshit games. We both know it goes both ways. But only one of us willing to admit it.
LOL.
Your stance is OBVIOUSLY that democrats do it significantly more than republicans, to a degree that election results can be manipulated. You have zero evidence of this, but you still feel comfortable advancing this false narrative ad nauseum. Who is playing partisan bullshit games here?
You do realize that my meme wasn't calling conservatives "slut" right? You do understand the 'pot calling the kettle black' meaning, right? Can't ever be sure these days.
My comment pokes fun at the conservatives accusing progressives of playing partisan games while they themselves are actively playing a partisan game. Thus, the crying laughter and pointing out the hilarious amount of hypocrisy.
I really would love to see that comment from any conservative here. Just a good old admission that they're here playing partisan bullshit games. Will we ever see it? I rather doubt it, but this comment gets about as close as they're ever likely to get to admitting it, so thank you.
I've never said I'm not partisan, I am. I support and cherish the constitution of the United States and our great Republic and will do my part to defend it from all foes, foreign and domestic. So why would I ever be bi-partisan and defend or takes sides with those trying to destroy our nation? When I see a slimy accused rapist and known sexual predator convicted felon and his mindless minions flinging shit at our constitution or other patriotic citizens, I fling it right back.
The only ones who seem to be pretending they're not partisan and screaming about the partisanship of their opponents while at the same time being WAY more blatantly and transparently partisan are Republicans. They act like their shit doesn't stink and love to throw shit but never accept that any criticism of their party or their President is valid. And frankly, ANY even objective observer would be able to give a LONG list of general and policy criticisms of this President, so anyone acting like they can't see it is being intentionally obtuse.
Now I'm sure an objective observer could give a long list about Democrats as well; Democrats are FAR from perfect and they fuck shit up all the time. But they're not the fucking bigoted conservative Christo-fascists determined to throw the lgtbq community back in the closet, kill the voting rights and civil rights acts and add additional voting restrictions to put up as many roadblocks as possible for minority voters.
Big parts of this thread were removed for meta and no value. Please stay on topic. Only warning.
I thought it was some kind of Democrat strategy to get illegals to vote. Turns out it’s the Republicans and red states.
Maybe Kansas should turn over its voter rolls and be denied federal funding. They’re clearly up to something.
Who said that?
See, unlike you, I have no problem calling it out on both sides.
Happy to help.
Donald Trump .
“ Trump said that Democrats want ‘illegals’ to be able to vote, adding, ‘and by the way, you go to California, don’t worry about it, they vote anyway. And they’re not supposed to.’ ‘You’ve got so many voting illegally in this country, it’s a disgrace,’ he said, adding that Americans everywhere should be required to present ID to cast a ballot.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson .
Senator Ted Cruz .
Senator John Cornyn .
Senator Rick Scott .
Elon Musk .
Speaker Mike Johnson …AGAIN!
.
Unlike you, I’m not making up shit about what people have said or not said. You have never seen me fail to call it out. In fact, on this very seed, I expressed my disagreement with non-citizens voting, even where it’s allowed in local elections.
You are (deliberately or ignorantly) ignoring the context of this old debate. Republicans have been saying for years that this was specifically a mainly Democratic issue; that this kind of thing is more likely to happen in blue states because Democrats actually want it to happen. But that claim is bullshit. Voting security in blue states is not worse than it is in red states, and voter fraud (when it happens) is pursued and prosecuted in blue states just like it is in red states.
If you want to pat yourself on the back for calling something out, you should call out that bullshit that is coming from Republicans.
I've never seen any progressives here, or anywhere else for that matter, saying they want to help illegal immigrants vote or suggesting we ignore or allow illegal immigrant voting.
I haven’t either. It’s an essential part of the bullshit voter fraud myth - that not only is it happening all the time, but Democrats are trying to make it happen. If that were true, Republicans wouldn’t win elections, never mind controlling all of the federal government.
But a conspiracy theory like this depends on people with at least a 3rd grade education not thinking about it too hard.
Along with the ones who know its bullshit but know the lie is working to disenfranchise eligible voters who would have likely voted for the candidates/party they believe is from the devil so they can't stop now. For them the ends justify the means. I think many truly believe they are on missions from God so doing whatever it takes to get and keep their new savior DJT in power, they'll do it.
That's what we have to face, obviously delusional religious extremists worshiping Trump who got us into this stupid war in Iran, costing us billions a day all because of their self-absorbed selfish desire to FORCE their religion on our entire nation. They revel in glee at the thought of it, and Trump is the tool they have used to do it. They are the biggest threat to the constitution and our nation as they have already proven once on January 6th. Makes me think of George W Bush who said, "There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, 'Fool me once, shame on... shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again.". Are we really going to let our nation get fooled again by a convicted felon pedophile clown? Is this how far our great nation has fallen? Just asking, not really expecting a reply.
Watching just a few minutes of that Youtube video was just so cringe but to see the numbers of up votes and 1.37 million subscribers is just fucking scary to me. While Trump clearly loves the poorly educated as he said, I think he loves the rabid evangelicals even more.
And how much of that is actual truth? Don't worry, it's a rhitorical questions. The answer is obvious.
So obvious you can’t even point it out. What a joke.
The joke is not knowing what a rhetorical question is.
I’m pretty sure everyone here knows what rhetorical is. The joke is that you seem to think a lot of what you were responding to was lies, but you won’t even try to justify your opinion by point a single one out.
Your repsonse says otherwise.
Define illegals.
Those who overstay their visas, cross the border at any point other than an authorized point of entry.
So it does not apply to a Permanent Resident with a green card, thanks.
the maga king of incompetence in DC is now going after green card holders ...
If they ahve a green card then they went about the process CORRECTLY and are permitted to be here. Why is that hard for you to understand?
4 days later....
Take the constant partisan snark foolery and jam it.
I have no problem understanding your original post on this article.
The mayor isn't an illegal, but he still managed to vote illegally. There is a difference.
You just assumed he was an illegal.
the depth of their knowledge rivals the thickness of their skins ...
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Impossible. Illegals don’t vote.
I'm pretty sure you can discern the difference between 'don't vote' and 'no statistical evidence'. You're just being purposefully obtuse. It's not going to work here.
This case is, in and of itself, “statistical evidence” illegals do vote.
Which nobody has denied. So you found 1 case out of 155 million votes, want to try for 2?
Hilarious. Nobody ever said it does not happen, it’s just so incredibly rare that it is meaningless in terms of election results. Why is it that so many of those incredibly rare instances involve Republicans? Are you intentionally creating a perceived problem with your own dumbass constituents to justify false claims of election fraud?
Hahahahaha! Okay, let's go with the logic and we can say it's also 'statistical evidence' Republicans cheat. Hahahahahaha!
Ummm....I took probability and statistics in college. I think the "statistical evidence" on this would calculate to about 0.000000000001%
I exaggerate but my point is the number is really too low to care about.
Completely destroying the lefts narrative that they don't.
A narrative that only exists your bubble.
I was just told there is no "Statistical evidence"
Yes, it proves how extremely low that statistic is.
Been waiting several years now and Republicans still have yet to produce any evidence of widespread fraud. What they have proven is that when they said voter fraud was happening, what they apparently meant was that Republicans are willing to commit voter fraud as the handful of cases they've proven are largely fraudulent votes for Trump.
How would you know? Your party fights makes to sure that it occurs and we can't know how prevalent it is.
But by blind faith you claim "it's meaningless".
well maybe if your party was spending less time burning crosses, laying the foundation for a xtian theocracy, and sucking child molesting criminal/fascist dick in the oval office, I'm sure the maga detectives could figure it out ...
How do you know that? The statistics show few get caught, not few do it.
Either it's true, or Republicans who've investigated it for over a decade are incompetent. Which is it?
Right up to election Day in 2016 Trump was privately secretly negotiating with Vlad Putin to build a Trump Tower Hotel right in Red Square in Moscow. This while denying the relationship. It would have been professional incompetence for American law enforcement and national security arms not to investigate. Hell, Trump even met with known Russian agents at Trump Tower!
The most corrupt administration in the history of this country wants full access to voter data that is constitutionally the under the purview of the states. Gee, what could go wrong? Funny how as rare as voter fraud is, it still gets discovered - but that’s not good enough for the treasonous pieces of shit that are only interested in illegally hanging onto power and dismantling democracy for good.
How do you know that? You assume there is some huge gap between the numbers of those caught and those who get away with it. Show your proof. Otherwise, one can assume that the deterrents and investigations have found 99% of all voter fraud. Unless you can prove they don't. Should we wait another few years for conservatives to come up with almost no evidence of voter fraud like last time? Are we just supposed to "trust" the rightwing conservative bigots' 'gut'? I know they're guts are large but that doesn't mean they're wise.
How much voter fraud does not get discovered?
They purge the rolls of Democratic voters
Why can anyone make that assumption? Wishful thinking?
It's as "informed" as your claim that a handful of cases of voter fraud prove there is widespread voter fraud occurring but we're just not catching it. I'm not actually claiming that 99% of voter fraud is found, I'm saying that is as good an assumption as conservatives assuming that there is widespread voter fraud based on a few dozen or even a few hundred of found cases of voter fraud of which MANY are Republicans fraudulently voting for Trump.
Voter fraud is rare because it is a major state and federal crime, is easy to detect, to prove and to prosecute. To have any effects it requires a huge criminal conspiracy. Nowhere are noncitizens allowed to vote in state or federal elections. Time and again it is proven not to be a real problem. So of course this is the narrative the GOP wants to lie about while the gop engages in all sorts of illegal campaign finance schemes. Follow The Money!
As has been pointed out in earlier responses to you, 1 out of 155 million votes does not qualify as "statistical evidence".
0.0000000064516129% Statistically that's zero.
None. All cases of voter fraud have been revealed if not prosecuted.
Prove me wrong.....
Yes, statistically zero people get caught, not zero people do it.
You made the claim, now prove it
I am not claiming that. I am saying we don't know and it might behoove us to make voting more robust.
It is the folks trying to claim that because only a few get caught means only a few don't get caught.
Reminds me of there being no problem at the border because only a few got caught coming into the US illegally.
And we all know that no one will do it if it is a crime. How is it so easy to detect if most folks don't seem to be looking at it.
Considering the article is talking about Republican voter fraud should we start investigating all Republican votes? How far back should we go? What happens if we find out Trump got too many fraudulent votes? I mean you guys tell us so much of this happens and we keep finding Trump voters doing it...
I am more interested in what we can do to make our voting stronger going forward. But if you want to go backward too that is fine, as long as it is done across the board and not just for one side.
thanks for doing the real math
You can't even articulate a real problem showing the current system is weak enough to need strengthening. You have some vague threat of not knowing...something you can't know. Unless you are proposing making all votes public knowledge? That's the only way WE can know who's voting improperly.
Yea, wait until it is broke and there is widespread fraud enough to affect the election results. Sounds like a great plan. S/
Yep, somebody found one. It’d be neat if this kind of emotion and energy went in to responding to the “statistical evidence” of mass shootings, rape, lack of healthcare, homelessness, or even just fraud in the current administration.
Fucking around with working systems is what breaks them.
Only if you don't know what you are doing. How does making the voting system more robust against fraud break it?
Do you change the oil in your car even though the engine is running fine?
Similarly, there are a handful of hantavirus cases in the US … that we know of. But how do we know there aren’t more citizens carrying this deadly virus? The federal government needs unfettered access to the medical records of every individual in the country to protect the public. Uday and Qusay Trump will already have orchestrated a new digital records scanning firm by the time their daddy has this epiphany, making them the obvious choice for a no-bid contract to take on this lucrative challenge.
Prove it.
You gave the numbers. 1 person was caught out of 150 million votes. What do you think your stats were reflecting?
I think the only similarity is that the hantavirus, as one virologist put it, is like a wet log in a fireplace when compared to the wildfire of Covid so there is absolutely no reason to panic. Same thing with supposed 'widespread voter fraud' that has conservatives losing their minds. While voter fraud does happen in isolated cases, it is a wet log in a fireplace in regard to spread which is why these stupid Republican laws are clearly not created to fight the fantasy of widespread voter fraud, they're created to disenfranchise eligible voters that their data tells them tend to vote Democrat.
I know how he wants to make his voting stronger....purge Democratic voters from the rolls
But it wasn't working for rightwing conservatives because the majority of Americans are moving away from their tired archaic moronic religious conservative ideology so now, they're determined to break it. It is pretty funny how they always fought so hard against any laws that would protect minority rights from the will of the majority, but now that they are finding themselves in the minority they both deny reality by claiming they're not actually a minority and everyone else must be cheating, while also doing everything in their power to erode the growing numbers of former minority opponents that they feel threaten their position.
Yeah, like politicians who are crying about voter rolls like they translate to actual votes, know what the fuck they are doing. /s
Again, no one can say how it's not as robust as it can be now.
Regularly changing the oil IS part of the system. Mechanics witnessed the breakdown of engine oil BEFORE incorporating checking oil and regular oil changes as part of the auto ownership.
Where have I ever claimed illegals aren't voting. Go ahead and link it.
And no one has used computers to shut down our electric grid yet so we should wait until they do before we do anything about improving cyber security.
Why are so many dems against improving voting security? Because it is not broken yet is ridiculous.
That there are so few instances as to be discounted since it would not effect any election.
So few instances of people getting caught.
You have yet to prove there are others.
We don't have one electrical grid we have dozens and every IT person on the planet has read how state sponsors hackers have tried getting into infrastructure and the whack-a-mole cyber security measure used to keep holes blocked. Keep floundering.
Your logic of needing to do something because we don't know why is really, really, ridiculous. If you had an argument you should be able to articulate the problem with data to back it up and propose a solution. This vague maybe, somebody might is bullshit.
And no one has used computers to shut down our electric grid yet so we should wait until they do before we do anything about improving cyber security.
By your logic hacking wouldn’t even be a thing, since you think we’re capable of accurately predicting how future hackers will operate. Cybersecurity is already a huge and robust industry. Once again you are creating boogeymen.
Have you tried investigating this question for yourself, or are you just hoping to score some rhetorical internet points? I mean, Google is free. You might find out that a lot of people have looked very seriously at this question for a long time. I did, and there definitely seems to be an evidence-based consensus view that voter fraud is vanishingly rare considering the number of votes cast.
Furthermore, valid evidence for the contrary view - that voter fraud is widespread - is nonexistent.
To take it another step, Republicans seem convinced that this fraud only works one way - to the benefit of Democrats. If that were true, how do Republicans control every branch of the federal government?
It’s the equivalent of “prove Bigfoot does not exist.” Bigfoot’s footprints are as good of evidence for his existence as known evidence of actual voter fraud is evidence of rampant election-changing results, especially from democrats.
Once again you are ignoring a likely future problem if we just sit back and do nothing. Bad actors are getting better and more sophisticated and your solution is .....nothing.
I would have no problem with improving voting security as long as the improvements aren't done by just one party that has studied voter trend data and created laws that specifically target voters who are likely to vote for their opponents.
If Republicans were actually honest and truly believe this is about keeping undocumented immigrants from voting, then the ONLY law they can justify pushing is the ID laws and they wouldn't be as restrictive over the type of ID allowed. Instead, they use at least 9 different tactics to suppress eligible voters.
So, the Republican lie is obvious. Their running around with their hair on fire has NOTHING to do with actually preventing 'illegals' from voting, it has EVERYTHING to do with Republicans trying desperately to make it harder for those they know vote for Democrats to vote at all. They want to discourage and disenfranchise as many Democratic voters as possible because that is the only way they can win in many places.
If conservatives drop the act and all the obvious attacks on Democracy or actually prove we need any of this bullshit and that elections are actually at risk, then I'll be on board beefing up voting security. If not, then it's clear what this is really about and proves Republicans are nothing but unpatriotic un-American liars trying to cheat the system because they know they can't win a fair election.
Always seems to be Republicans, maybe that's the motivation for the Republican Party, the embarrassment, right?
Impossible. This is only a thing Democrats do. This only happens in blue states. Democrats are throwing the borders wide open and encouraging non-citizens to vote because they would always vote Democrat and never Republican. Kansas should probably have to turn over its voter rolls to the federal government, lose funding, and maybe just not be allowed to vote in the next election. Are Democrats secretly controlling Kansas?
except for this guy...who's been illegally voting for republicans for how many years?
Republicans desperately want you to believe that the country is filled with illegals who are so comfortable with their status that they would risk everything for the opportunity to affect the national election with their one single vote, or that it is filled with legal citizens who are willing to risk their freedom and their livelihood for the opportunity to affect a national election by driving from one polling location to another and waiting in long lines all day long for the opportunity to affect the election with a couple or possibly a handful of votes from their illegal actions. Then they go and do this themselves and sacrifice their own freedom for the opportunity to prove that voter fraud exists. It is beyond stupid, just like most everything else they stand for.
First, we should teach them that Legal Permanent Residents with a green card aren't illegals.
That would be the first thing to do to stop the gaslighting
maga seems to lack any measure of intellectual depth on that topic ...
I think that was a fair sentence. This should not go further.
And what if this was the mayor of a Democrat city, someplace like Oakland, who admitted he fraudulently voted for Biden in 2020? Would you really not try to use that as an example of what you see as Democrat fraud and see it as support for conservatives unfounded assumption that Trump really won the 2020 election and that Democrats are enabling illegals to vote and then hope the judge throws the book at that Democrat mayor? And would you really see a six-month suspended jail sentence and a $2,000 fine as "fair" and "shouldn't go any further" in that case? Really?
Coldwater, Kansas has a population of under 700 people. Regardless of who Ceballos voted for, Democrat or Republican, it is far more plausible that he did not realize that he couldn't vote on a green card. It's plausible that he genuinely may have thought that if he could be mayor, he could vote. I would assume the prosecutor for his case was convinced of the same, as he downgraded felony charges to misdemeanors because he did not believe there was intent behind the violation. That's good enough for me.
As for the rest of your questions, you're substituting different circumstances other than ones that applied to Ceballos and implying that I would not be so impartial. That's ridiculous. If the circumstances are different, then my opinion would likely depend on those circumstances and therefore, may be different than the one I have concerning Ceballos. Concerning your rather convoluted example, it is not plausible that someone with a green card , running for mayor of a major metropolitan city like Chicago, at that level of political machinery, would be unaware of what he could or couldn't do on a green card, whether Republican or Democrat. Too many lawyers involved for something like "I didn't know" to fly.
It should be noted, however, that what I've said concerns immigrants with legal status. My opinion would have been very different had Ceballos been in an illegal status.
Irrelevant.
So that would somehow be different if this was a Democrat mayor?
Why is that ridiculous?
Not convoluted at all, though your attempt to avoid the question certainly is.
Your attempted squirming defense to not have to admit that "YES!" you would see it differently if it were a Democrat, is not plausible. It is adorable though.
Why should that be noted? I didn't say anything about "illegal status" in my question, why bring it up now? Of course, I was asking a simple question about if the party was switched in this case and you had to back pedal to try and get around that question and still make it sound as if you're not a total hypocrite like so many other rightwing conservative Christians.
the guy was a repuublican and probably believed the rwnj bullshit he heard from other republican morons about democrats letting the undocumented vote and so he went and voted ...
Your inability to understand what I said doesn't change what I said. I made my position clear that it does not matter to me whether this concerns Democrats or Republicans. Keep pretending your desired outcome applies, though, if it makes you happy.
Democrats convicted in Texas do hard time, often the full five years.
Having the prosecutor drop it to a misdemeanor misses the point.
Should he pay the price of the crime or be evicted from his entire life to go try and adapt in Mexico.
ICE has said in many, many cases that a conviction, is a conviction, is a conviction.
people have been deported for 30 year old crimes after serving time and making restitution.
Why should this Mayor be treated differently?
It's ludicrous.
I already gave my personal opinion on that.
As for the rest of your point, it's too general to respond to. It isn't that simple.
... extenuating circumstances, he's a republican.
If only there were a gold medal to win for mental gymnastics, rightwing religious conservatives wouldn't even have any real competition.
maga willful ignorance fits hand in hand with thumper gullibility ...
He also got to pay a lot more for gas.