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Cecilia Castellanos, a 59-year-old Cuban resident of Rogers, Arkansas, is facing five years in prison for voting illegally in the November 2024 elections. However, court records reviewed by the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reveal that the true cause of her conviction was not her immigration status, but rather the falsehoods she wrote on her voter registration form.
When the Attorney General of Arkansas, Tim Griffin, announced his arrest on October 2, 2025, along with that of two other non-citizen women, the public narrative focused on the fact that Castellanos had an outstanding deportation order since 1999 and had been in the country for decades without regular immigration status.
However, what determined his conviction was something different: when registering to vote, he marked "no" when asked if he had prior convictions for felonies, and declared himself a U.S. citizen. Both claims were false.
Castellanos had three convictions for serious offenses in the state of New York—specifically for forgery and theft committed between 1996 and 2006—and he never obtained U.S. citizenship, reports the American media.
In Arkansas, individuals with felony convictions cannot vote unless their rights are restored, according to the state constitution.
That is why the prosecutors filed state charges, such as perjury—a Class C felony—for the falsehoods in the form, and violation of election eligibility laws, a Class D felony.
The investigation was initiated by a complaint from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which detected irregularities in the electoral rolls and alerted the Attorney General's Office of Arkansas, leading to Castellanos' arrest on September 30, 2025.
In January 2026, Castellanos pleaded guilty to perjury and violations of voting requirements, under an agreement negotiated between his attorney Adam Rose and Assistant District Attorney Justin Harper.
Judge Brad Karren of Benton County issued a five-year prison sentence, of which 16 months were suspended, and ordered that Castellanos shall not re-register or attempt to vote in the future.
After the ruling, she was detained by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Benton County jail, with her deportation order from 1999 still in effect.
The article from the Democrat-Gazette, published last Friday, emphasizes that the initial coverage created a distorted perception: the case is not merely that of an immigrant who voted without being a citizen, but rather of someone who actively lied about their criminal history in order to register.
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