ICE nabs more Caribbean nationals for allegedly voting illegally

SOURCE: Caribbean Me­dia Cor­po­ra­tion

Sev­er­al Caribbean na­tion­als are among dozens of im­mi­grants fac­ing charges in the Unit­ed States as fed­er­al au­thor­i­ties in­ten­si­fy a na­tion­wide crack­down on al­leged il­le­gal vot­ing and vot­er reg­is­tra­tion fraud.

US Im­mi­gra­tion and Cus­toms En­force­ment (ICE) says its lat­est ar­rests in­volve na­tion­als of Ja­maica, Trinidad and To­ba­go, Cu­ba and Haiti, as the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion steps up ef­forts to in­ves­ti­gate al­leged vi­o­la­tions of fed­er­al elec­tion laws.

Among those ar­rest­ed is Ja­maican na­tion­al An­to­nio Mitchell, a 54-year-old law­ful per­ma­nent res­i­dent, ac­cused of vot­ing in sev­er­al fed­er­al elec­tions be­tween 2000 and 2022.

Au­thor­i­ties al­so al­lege that Mitchell made false state­ments on his US cit­i­zen­ship ap­pli­ca­tion in 2025, deny­ing that he had pre­vi­ous­ly reg­is­tered or vot­ed.

An­oth­er Ja­maican na­tion­al, Ka­di­an Hohn­son, is re­port­ed­ly in cus­tody for al­leged­ly vot­ing in the 2024 elec­tion.

ICE al­so iden­ti­fied Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­al Sade Shashau­na Gup­py, ac­cused of il­le­gal­ly vot­ing in 2022, and Cuban na­tion­al An­dres Gar­cia, who faces a charge of vot­ing as a nonci­t­i­zen.

Hait­ian na­tion­al Sire­na Pros­per was al­so named among those ac­cused of vot­ing il­le­gal­ly in the 2024 elec­tion.

ICE As­sis­tant Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Af­fairs Mic­ah Bock said au­thor­i­ties would con­tin­ue pur­su­ing in­di­vid­u­als sus­pect­ed of vi­o­lat­ing fed­er­al elec­tion laws.

“Vot­ing in Amer­i­can elec­tions is a right re­served for el­i­gi­ble vot­ers,” he said, warn­ing that those who know­ing­ly break elec­tion laws face se­ri­ous con­se­quences.

Mean­while, the US De­part­ment of Jus­tice says 63 im­mi­grants have been charged in its lat­est round of cas­es in­volv­ing al­leged il­le­gal vot­ing, fraud­u­lent vot­er reg­is­tra­tion and re­lat­ed of­fences.

The de­part­ment re­port­ed that 195 im­mi­grants have been charged across 25 states over the past nine weeks, bring­ing the to­tal num­ber of peo­ple charged with vot­ing-re­lat­ed of­fences since the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion took of­fice to 239.

Those fac­ing charges in­clude ad­di­tion­al na­tion­als of Ja­maica, Trinidad and To­ba­go, Bar­ba­dos, Bermu­da, St. Kitts and Nevis, Cu­ba and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

US At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Todd Blanche said the Jus­tice De­part­ment would con­tin­ue in­ves­ti­gat­ing and pros­e­cut­ing al­leged vot­er fraud as part of ef­forts to strength­en con­fi­dence in the elec­toral sys­tem.

Un­der US fed­er­al law, nonci­t­i­zens, in­clud­ing law­ful per­ma­nent res­i­dents, are gen­er­al­ly pro­hib­it­ed from vot­ing in fed­er­al elec­tions.

The al­le­ga­tions against those charged have not been es­tab­lished in court. —WASH­ING­TON (CMC)