Former Coldwater mayor turns himself in to ICE in front of cameras, friends and protesters

Joe Ceballos’s arrest and detention by ICE in Wichita on Wednesday, with friends and protesters watching, came with an ironic twist.

Asked whether he regretted voting for President Trump, whose immigration crackdown he now finds himself ensnared in, Ceballos said he did not, much to the chagrin of some in the assembly.

The former Coldwater mayor’s odyssey from naive undocumented person to community pillar to immigration detainee took a turn when Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach charged him with voter fraud.

Ceballos lived and worked in Kansas legally for 50 years as the holder of a green card. He said he mistook the large black letters on that card more than 35 years ago that declared him a “permanent resident.” That’s not citizenship, complete with voting rights. But he registered to vote, not realizing this, he said, when he was 18.

His voting record touched off a federal effort to get Ceballos deported. “This illegal alien,” the Department of Homeland Security has called him.

Just minutes before Ceballos turned himself in to Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities at ICE’s east Wichita field office, walking past protestors, Ceballos signed papers, on the back of his attorney Jess Hoeme’s car, applying to Gov. Laura Kelly for clemency on the state charges.

But that didn’t affect the federal matter he faced Wednesday. He walked in with his immigration attorney, Sarah Balderas.

They did not handcuff him, Balderas said, but took his wallet and his phone.

While this was happening, a man with a megaphone in the parking lot outside shouted “Shame! Shame! Shame!” Protesters around the man held up signs with Ceballos’ name on them. And more: “Veterans Against Fascism.” ”Defund Ice.” “Yes, I will protest if you are disappeared.” “And then they came for me.” ”Let Joe Go..”

Balderas had told him, he said, that it would not surprise her at all if ICE held him in custody for months before he’s granted a bond hearing. “But we’ll hope for the best and that it will happen soon.”

Ceballos left behind his wife, Jayne, at his home in Coldwater. “She broke her arm a couple of weeks ago and can’t come today,” he said. “She’s beside herself over this.”

Ceballos had said from the beginning of last year that he’d voted for Trump and voted also for Kobach, every time Kobach ran for Secretary of State, or governor, or attorney general.

Ceballos told a gaggle of reporters outside ICE that he didn’t regret voting for President Trump, which he said he’s done all three times Trump ran.

“Why not?” someone asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t want to answer that.”

That stunned several protestors who heard him say this.

“That’s just stunning,” said Paul Klusman, a Wichita resident holding the “Defund ICE” sign. Why would he say that? That’s just unbelievable.”

“I do sympathize with him and with what’s happening,” Klusman said. “But how could he say that about the very people who are having him arrested here?”

“It almost makes me regret showing up to support him,” another protestor said.

Shannon Boone, the head of Defend Democracy ICT, heard Ceballos say it too, and had already taken exception to the grumbling with a note to the organization members, written before she arrived at the ICE facility.

She understood why people would say such things, she wrote.

“But part of the reason we continue showing up week after week at city council meetings, county meetings, legislative hearings … and the ballot box, is because we believe constitutional rights, due process, and basic human dignity are not supposed to depend on whether we agree with someone politically.”

When the state charges were resolved weeks ago, with his guilty plea to a felony crime reduced to misdemeanor and his agreement to pay a fine, Ceballos thought his voter nightmare was over. But Jess Hoeme, his attorney for those charges, never believed that.

After the plea deal in a Comanche County courtroom, Ceballos said, he watched “about a hundred people in there, clapping and hollering.” The judge applauded the resolution of the case.

“But now it seems the federal people were just sitting in a corner, waiting for that to get done, and then planning to go after me.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice if our members of Congress would do something about this?” Hoeme said to reporters. He had said earlier that all the Republicans in the Kansas congressional delegation have refused to return his calls.

If he’s deported, Ceballos will return to a Mexico he hasn’t seen in half a century; he barely speaks any Spanish now.

Michael Bushnell supervises Ceballos in his utility company job. Bushnell drove Ceballos to Wichita on Wednesday, “trying to get him giggling as we rode,” he said. “I had him going pretty good. Might as well try to lighten the mood on a day like this.”

“This is awful,” he said.

Ryan Swayze, a rancher and lifelong Ceballos friend, wearing a cowboy hat and a big belt buckle, showed up outside ICE to wish him well before he went in. “I’m here because my friend is here,” he said. “What’s happening to him today is not fair.”

Swayze plans to take care of the small herd of cows and horses Ceballos owns outside Coldwater, where he was the town mayor until he faced illegal-voting charges. Ceballos ultimately resigned from the role.

“The mayor job in Coldwater is more of a headache than anything else,” Swayze said. “The guy that just walked into detention is generous, always there for people, always doing good, and he doesn’t have a mean bone in his body.

“In fact he’s more of a blue-blooded American than just about any of those guys,” he said as he waved a hand toward ICE employees, who were watching protestors from behind a chain link fence.