After a shocking investigation, Jose “Joe” Ceballos, Coldwater, Kansas, a green card holder and Mexican citizen, has been slapped with felony voter fraud charges for voting in elections since the 1990s. Charged by AG Kris Kobach shortly after reelection in November 2025, Ceballos faces prison time and deportation.
However, some residents were unhappy with the prosecution, and a few thought the charges were unfair. According to officials, the detection stemmed from his February 2025 citizenship application, which flagged his status. Likewise, several of the men responsible for bringing Ceballos to justice thanked Trump for expanding voter security.
Upset by the arrest, A friend of Joe Ceballos claimed, “He’s more American than I am.” Similarly annoyed, Dennis Swayze, a rancher, added, “If deportation happens, I can tell you that Kobach will have trouble showing up here, especially if he asks to stay with us for a while.”
However, some residents took an alternate view. “Democrats think the government provides, while Republicans think the government should let us just do our thing,” another local said in reaction to these sweeping charges.
As we reported at the time of the initial charges, the Kansas Attorney General explained the deep flaws in our electoral system. “In large part, our system right now is based on trust. Trust that when the person signed the registration or signs the pollbooks saying that he’s a qualified elector or that he is a United States citizen, that the person is telling the truth… In this case, we allege that Mr. Ceballos violated that trust,” Kris Kobach noted.
Adding more context in a press release, the courageous official explained the seriousness of the situation, saying, “Voting by noncitizens, including both legal and illegal aliens, is a very real problem. It happens. Every time a noncitizen votes, it effectively cancels out a U.S. citizen’s vote.”
Digging into the details, Skip Herd, the Coldwater City Attorney, summarized the facts of the case. The official explained, “He’s been a registered voter since 1990. He applied for citizenship in February of this year, and through that, raised the issue of whether he was a legal citizen.”
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Likewise, Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab described how the crime was discovered. “We now have tools, thanks to the current White House, that we haven’t had in over 10 years that we can check through the SAVE program, to find out if folks end up on our voter rolls. And they could be a legal resident, but they’re not a citizen,” Schwab said.
Concluding his comments, Schwab thanked President Trump for securing our elections. He noted, “I’ve worked with Attorney General Kobach for years on proof of citizenship as a useful tool to root out election crimes. During my time as House Elections Chair, then Secretary Kobach and I fought to pass a proof of citizenship requirement. Instead, we’re left relying on individuals’ word when it comes to verifying citizenship… I’m grateful that President Trump implemented the SAVE program to help states and to prevent situations like this.”
Watch another blue city mayor admit to being an illegal here: