A 55-year-old illegal immigrant from Colombia drew a three-year federal prison sentence this week for stealing an American citizen's identity, using it to vote in multiple U.S. elections, and then attempting to re-enter the country on a fiancé visa under his real name.
Carlos Felipe Jaramillo-Grajales built an entire fraudulent life around a stolen Social Security number. He used it to obtain a U.S. passport. He used it to claim American citizenship while getting a Florida driver's license. He used that license to register to vote. And he cast ballots, in the 2020 election and several others, Breitbart News reported.
The Department of Justice announced the sentencing on Friday. Jaramillo-Grajales was convicted on four federal charges: making false statements in a passport application, aggravated identity theft, falsely claiming a Social Security number belonged to him, and falsely claiming U.S. citizenship in order to vote. A federal judge also issued a deportation order. Once he finishes his prison term, immigration officials will remove him from the country.
The scheme stretched back years. At some point, the DOJ announcement did not specify when, Jaramillo-Grajales got hold of a Social Security number belonging to an actual American citizen. That nine-digit number became his skeleton key.
With it, he applied for and received a U.S. passport. He walked into a Florida licensing office, presented the stolen number, and claimed he was an American citizen. The state issued him a driver's license. With that license in hand, he registered to vote.
He then voted. Not once. He cast a ballot in the 2020 presidential election and, according to federal officials, in several other elections as well. The DOJ did not say how many additional elections or identify which ones.
The case is a sharp reminder that federal citizenship-fraud enforcement matters. Every fraudulent vote cast by a person who has no legal right to participate cancels out the legitimate vote of an actual citizen. That is not a hypothetical harm. It is a concrete one, and it happened here repeatedly.
The timeline grew stranger after the fraud was already in motion. Jaramillo-Grajales had married a foreign national, using the stolen Social Security number. His wife arrived in the United States in September 2003 on a B visitor visa. She eventually secured naturalized American citizenship in August 2017.
In January 2020, the couple divorced. Both left for Colombia. But the separation did not last.
His ex-wife, now a naturalized U.S. citizen, applied for a fiancé visa on his behalf, this time under his real name, Carlos Felipe Jaramillo-Grajales. The visa was approved. He flew back into the United States under his actual identity.
In June 2025, the two remarried. Jaramillo-Grajales then applied for a green card. The application apparently triggered scrutiny, or investigators had already connected the dots between the stolen identity and the real man. Federal officials have not disclosed exactly how or when the fraud was uncovered.
Consider the audacity of that sequence. A man who spent years living under a stolen American identity, voting in American elections, carrying an American passport, left the country, came back under his real name, and filed paperwork asking the same government he had defrauded to grant him lawful permanent residence. Cases like this underscore why federal prosecutors have pursued stiff sentences against foreign nationals who exploit the immigration system.
U.S. Attorney Gregory Kehoe framed the case as a straightforward matter of border and election security. He said:
"Federal immigration laws serve to safeguard our nation's borders and protect the integrity of our government. Those who seek to circumvent, exploit, or break these laws will be prosecuted fully."
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin went further, tying the case directly to election integrity. Mullin credited the investigators at Homeland Security Investigations and federal partners for building the case.
Mullin stated:
"This criminal illegal alien from Colombia has just been sentenced to three years in a federal prison for identity theft and falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen. Because of his fraud, he was able to obtain a driver's license and vote in our elections. Thanks to the hard work of the men and women of Homeland Security Investigations, along with our federal partners, this criminal is out of our communities and, at the end of his sentence, will be removed from our country. DHS will always fight to protect the integrity of our elections, because election security is national security. Only Americans should be electing American leaders."
Mullin's final line, "Only Americans should be electing American leaders", states a principle that should not be controversial. Yet for years, efforts to verify voter eligibility have been fought at every turn by political leaders and advocacy groups who dismiss voter fraud as a myth or a rarity too small to matter. Jaramillo-Grajales voted in multiple elections. He was not caught until federal investigators pieced together two separate identities belonging to the same man.
Several important questions remain open. The DOJ announcement did not name the federal court or district where Jaramillo-Grajales was sentenced. It did not specify the exact sentencing date beyond "this week." It did not say how many total elections he voted in beyond the 2020 contest and "several" others.
Nor did officials explain which agency approved the fiancé visa, or whether anyone flagged the application given that the same man had previously traveled internationally under a stolen identity. The American citizen whose Social Security number was stolen has not been publicly identified, and it is unclear whether that person has been notified or made whole.
The case also raises a structural question about how an illegal immigrant obtained a U.S. passport and a Florida driver's license using a stolen Social Security number without any system catching the mismatch. Those are supposed to be among the most secure identity documents the government issues. If a stolen number is enough to get both, the verification systems meant to prevent exactly this kind of fraud failed at every checkpoint. The broader pattern of illegal immigrants evading accountability through bureaucratic gaps is not new, but each case exposes the same weaknesses.
Three years in federal prison, followed by deportation, is the outcome. Whether that sentence is sufficient for a man who stole an American's identity, obtained a passport fraudulently, and voted illegally in multiple elections is a question reasonable people can debate. What is not debatable is that the fraud happened, that it went undetected for years, and that it took a federal investigation to stop it.
The DOJ's action in this case is part of a broader push to hold foreign nationals accountable for crimes committed inside the United States. High-profile federal sentencings have become more frequent as the administration signals that immigration enforcement extends well beyond the border.
When someone who has no right to be in this country can steal an identity, get a passport, register to vote, and cast ballots for years without detection, the problem is not just one man's crime, it is a system that made the crime easy.