Three non-citizens were arrested recently for illegally voting in Arkansas elections, as state officials are working to ensure only American citizens can vote.
In his statement issued Thursday, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said, “Investigators in my office have arrested three noncitizens for illegally voting in our elections despite not having the status to do so. Arkansas’s elections are sound and secure, which is why we deal swiftly and decisively when rare infractions like these come to our attention. I am committed to preserving the integrity of our democratic process.”
Griffin’s office also posted the mugshots of the three suspects:
Griffin said an investigation was launched earlier this year when federal officials alerted state authorities about certain people whose voting records appeared incongruent with their citizenship status, adding Arkansas authorities partnered with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on the issue.
One of the suspects identified was 59-year-old Cecilia Castellanos who is from Cuba. She has been charged with one count of perjury, and one felony count for violating state election laws.
“Castellanos is a Cuban national who has a pending order of removal by an immigration judge from 1999. She also has three prior felony convictions in New York state. Her perjury charge stems from her marking on a voter registration form that she was a citizen of the United States and that she did not have any prior felony convictions. The election law violation arises from her illegally voting in the 2024 general election despite not being a U.S. citizen,” the attorney general’s office said.
Meanwhile, the Tea Party Patriots Action (TPPA) has been working to pass legislation requiring proof of citizenship before people register to vote, Breitbart News reported in August:
Jenny Beth Martin, founder of Tea Party Patriots Action (TPPA), explained why the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act) is a necessary step to tighten election security and shared the launch of her group’s national bus tour in a recent Breitbart News Saturday interview with Matthew Boyle.
“It is a bill that, if enacted into law — which is our goal, to enact it into law — would require proof of citizenship to register to vote. Right now, that doesn’t happen with the National Voter Registration Act, which we commonly know as the ‘Motor Voter Law,’” the conservative activist explained.
The Motor Voter Law allows people to register to vote when they are getting a driver’s license, but it does not require proof of citizenship, Martin explained.
In November before President Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, Breitbart News reported that “The non-citizen population in the United States has grown so fast that it could swing 12 states toward the Democrats’ presidential candidate if the foreigners were allowed to vote, says the non-partisan Center for Immigration Studies.”
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