Illegal Voter Won’t Face Deportation

A retired baker from Mexico who voted illegally while living as a legal resident in the United States won’t face deportation after all.

A judge ended deportation proceedings against Jose Sanchez, 66, of National City on Tuesday after the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service reviewed the case and decided that he didn’t deserve expulsion.

“Everything was taken into consideration,” INS spokesman Mario Villarreal told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “We were sympathetic to his physical condition, his extremely clean record, his family ties, his commitment to his profession.”

Sanchez, who has had both legs amputated because of complications from diabetes, told authorities he only wanted to help his daughter with a high school civics project when he signed a U.S. voter registration card in 1992.

Two years later, he received an election pamphlet in the mail and misinterpreted it to mean that he was legally obligated to cast a ballot. He voted again in 1996.

Sanchez, who has lived in the United States since 1972, applied for U.S. citizenship in 1998 and during his INS interview was asked whether he had ever voted. He replied yes and later received a letter informing him that he faced deportation for voting illegally.

“I worked for a long time and never caused any problems, never even had a traffic ticket,” Sanchez said. “I felt bad when this happened because I had never done anything in bad faith.”

Sanchez hired a lawyer and prepared to fight the case in immigration court, arguing that he did not intentionally violate the law.

But the INS decision ends the legal process against him, and Sanchez is free now to continue with his citizenship application.

“They made it hard for me, but I understand the law better now,” he said.