Estelle, who has been a permanent resident for the past 20 years, has successfully navigated the parole process after visiting family in her native France.
However, officers detained the 57-year-old Lawrence, Kansas native for 30 days on her most recent customs inspection in mid-March, forced her to spend the night in a holding cell on a concrete slab, and threatened to take her to jail.
Why? Because she acknowledged that she once voted in a local election despite not being a U.S. member when she was being interrogated by customs officers. Lawrence is not one of the many cities in the United States that allows noncitizens to cast ballots in regional elections. Both Kansas and federal legislation require U.S. citizenship to record to cast ballots.
Immigration and election experts claim that despite overwhelming evidence that it is uncommon, the Trump administration’s efforts to find and prosecute cases of noncitizen election are on a new increase in the wake of her situation, which hasn’t previously been reported. ( Estelle requested that her last name not be used because of safety concerns. )
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has generally not participated in election-fraud studies. However, the company had flagged her for specific attention and that officers had access to her election history, according to the text of Estelle’s meeting, which was provided to ProPublica by her attorney. During questioning, Estelle claimed that she believed she was cast ballot in local elections because a state employee with the department of motor vehicles informed her that she was ready when she renewed her driver’s license.
Kerry Doyle, a lieutenant general counsel for the Biden administration, claimed she had not heard of anyone being detained at a port of entry on suspicion of voting improperly.
According to Doyle, a long-time immigration attorney, “it took them a lot of effort and effort to search through all these things to consider this needle in the haystack.” It is a knife in the haystack, they say.
A CBP spokesman confirmed that officials detained a person at the Detroit airport who matched Estelle’s information, putting her in elimination proceedings. The standard emphasized that voting illegally is a deportable act rather than answer questions about whether the company is now frequently questioning noncitizen tourists about voting at ports of entry.
The director stated in an email that” the Trump Administration will continue to impose our country’s laws.” ” Those who violate these laws will be detained, detained, and taken away as necessary.”
Matthew Hoppock, Estelle’s lawyer, claimed she had not then violated the terms of her green card and had no prior criminal history. He claimed that she registered to cast as part of the 2023 renewal process for her pilot’s license. According to Douglas County records, Estelle voted in a November 2023 vote that included tribes for city council and school board. She did not cast a ballot in any succeeding elections, including the national election in 2024.
After Hoppock spoke with DHS officials about her case, an immigration judge granted Estelle’s request to cancel her treatment trials. She’s not yet ready to face any additional legal costs. ( CBP declined to comment on whether any pending matters are. ) Hoppock claimed that CBP had overstepped its intense approach to the issue, which he called “really something.”
It’s obvious as evening that she wasn’t trying to break the law, he said.
Although Trump has repeatedly claimed that there are thousands of noncitizens who can voting, only a small percentage of them actually do, according to Wendy Weiser, evil chairman for politics at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit organization for voting rights.
Weiser expressed concern about how these types of situations are made public as a means of frightening people.
Local and state poll authorities usually identify these rare instances when they are reported to law enforcement. Many vote attorneys contend that they frequently do not proceed because the vote frequently was mistakenly registered by an elections clerk or voted without realizing it was illegal. Lawyers may need to show that it was purposeful based on the fees.
Despite the lack of sufficient evidence to suggest that it is a common problem, Trump has made it clear he wants the federal government to do more to stop and prosecute election fraud.
He repeatedly pushed for the passage of the SAVE America Act, which would have required voters to provide video proof of citizenship when they voted in the election. He signed an executive order in March 2025 that, in element, directed federal agencies to use their resources to assist in the identification and prosecution of noncitizen citizens. His Justice Department began mandating that states provide voter-roll data, and DHS updated a tool to make it possible for states to systematically verify registered voters ‘ citizenship status.
The device proved to be extremely error-prone, according to ProPublica. However, despite its flaws, it appears that DHS is still using the device to prosecute those who don’t vote. Homeland Security Investigations, a division of the agency, will investigate more than 24, 000 possible alien voters who were flagged by SAVE, according to a recent statement from DHS.
Because their current position forbids them from making public comments, a former CBP official said it is likely that possible noncitizen citizens have been flagged in the method used by customs officers to assess international travellers ‘ passports. If that’s the case, police may notice in the person’s report that they should be asked about their voting histories more.
Hoppock claimed that Estelle was being detained while on a vacation when she returned from a trip to France to see her ailing parents. The standard inquired about Estelle’s ability to vote or not, and she responded by telling him that she had voted once in her interview with a customs official. The official then inquired if she had cast a ballot in the local election held on November 7, 2023.
Officers placed Estelle in the body after questioning her, according to Hoppock, who placed a thin mattress on top of the concrete block and a cover from an aircraft. He claimed that she overheard officers talking about the Immigration and Customs Enforcement services and was concerned that she might be relocated it as a result. She was released after more than 30 days in prison.
The secretary for Douglas County, Kansas, where Estelle was registered, Jamie Shew, the clerk, claimed in an interview that he learned about her situation on March 23 when CBP issued an operational lawsuit asking for her voter registration application and voting records.
Shew claimed that he didn’t have the application; rather, he had just received information from the secretary of state, which indicated that she had registered in September 2023 and wasn’t affiliated with a political party.
Shew claimed that only if the would-be voter proves they are a U.S. citizen as federal law mandates, he is only supposed to be given registrations to process. Estelle insists that she clarified to the department of motor vehicles that she was not a citizen.
Shew claimed that Estelle contacted him shortly after receiving the subpoena from the CBP. He claimed that she requested to cancel her voter registration, and he did so on March 31.
Hoppock worries that the federal government has avoided prosecuting and convicting by moving straight to deportation proceedings.
He said, “You’re going to get people like Estelle who haven’t intended to do anything wrong, getting detained in a jail cell in Michigan.”
Do You Have Any Knowledge About This Subject?
Our team is still receiving information about prosecutions of noncitizen voters.
Jen Fifield
Send me advice on the Trump administration’s voting and election policies, as well as local or national threats to fair, secure, and accurate elections.
A Noncitizen Says She Was Told She Could Vote appeared. Then, after being detained at the airport, Customs threatened to take her. first appeared on ProPublica.
