A Paterson man who has lived in the United States as a lawful permanent resident is now facing federal prison time over how he voted — and over what he later told the government when he applied to become a citizen. Antonio Mitchell, 54, a Jamaican national living in Paterson, Passaic County, was arrested on October 28 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and charged in a federal criminal complaint with voting by a noncitizen in a federal election, unlawfully attempting to procure United States citizenship, and making false statements while applying for citizenship, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey announced. ICE publicised the arrest in an announcement reported nationally on Election Day, November 3. The charges are accusations contained in a complaint; Mitchell has not been convicted of anything and is presumed innocent.
What prosecutors allege: 22 years of ballots
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office and ICE, Mitchell registered to vote and participated in multiple federal primary and general elections over a 22-year span, from 2000 through 2022, despite being ineligible because he was not a U.S. citizen. Federal prosecutors say he falsely certified on voter registration forms that he was a U.S. citizen, and they have specifically charged him in connection with casting a ballot in person during the November 2022 general election. Mitchell entered the United States from Jamaica on a B-2 visa, according to the prosecutors' release, and later held lawful permanent resident status — a green card, which allows a person to live and work in the United States permanently but does not carry the right to vote in federal elections.
The naturalization application that reopened everything
The case turned, prosecutors say, when Mitchell applied to become a citizen. In January 2025 he submitted an Application for Naturalization — Form N-400 — the standard application on which every question must be answered truthfully under penalty of perjury. On the form, authorities allege, Mitchell stated that he had never registered to vote or voted in a federal, state or local election. ICE says he repeated that denial in a March 2026 interview with an immigration officer, when he again said he had never registered or voted. Investigators say the voting records told a different story. The investigation was conducted jointly by HSI, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the case is part of the U.S. Attorney's Office's Election Integrity Task Force, which coordinates investigations into suspected violations affecting elections in New Jersey.
Arrest, court appearance and bond
Mitchell was arrested on October 28, 2026, and made his initial appearance the same day before U.S. Magistrate Judge Leda Dunn Wettre in federal court in Newark. He was released on a $25,000 bond, according to ICE's announcement as reported by the New York Post and other outlets. U.S. Attorney Robert Frazer announced the charges, and the government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Mark McCarren and Michael K. O'Leary of the office's Special Prosecutions Division. Frazer credited the FBI's Newark office, under Special Agent in Charge Stefanie Roddy, HSI, under Special Agent in Charge Michael S. McCarthy, and USCIS with the investigation. No plea has been reported, and Mitchell's next court date has not been publicly scheduled in the reporting so far.
A second Passaic County case announced the same week
Mitchell was one of two Passaic County residents charged in separate complaints announced by the U.S. Attorney's Office on October 29. The second man, Morzetta, 72, an Italian national who lives in North Haledon, was charged with voting by a noncitizen in a federal election and unlawfully attempting to obtain U.S. citizenship. Prosecutors say Morzetta entered the United States from Italy under a P21 classification as the spouse of a noncitizen resident, falsely certified citizenship on voter registration forms, and later claimed on his own N-400 naturalization application that he had never registered to vote or voted in a federal election. Morzetta also made his initial appearance before Judge Wettre in Newark. The two cases are separate complaints, not a joint conspiracy charge, and each man is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
The U.S. Attorney's Office lists the statutory maximums: voting by a noncitizen in a federal election carries up to 1 year in federal prison and a fine of up to $100,000; unlawfully attempting to procure citizenship carries up to 10 years and a fine of up to $250,000; and making false statements while applying for citizenship — the extra count Mitchell alone faces — carries up to 5 years and a fine of up to $250,000. These are maximums written in the statutes, not sentences; no sentence has been imposed, and any actual sentence would be decided by a judge only after a conviction or a guilty plea.
Why this case lands hard in New Jersey's immigrant communities
Passaic County and the wider North Jersey corridor — Paterson, Passaic, Clifton, and the Edison and Jersey City communities further south — are home to some of the largest immigrant communities on the East Coast, including a large Punjabi and Sikh population for whom the N-400 naturalization interview is a familiar milestone. The practical lesson prosecutors are broadcasting with this case is specific: when a permanent resident applies for citizenship, the government checks the application against voting and registration records, and answers given years apart — on a registration form, on the N-400, and in the interview room — are compared with each other. A false answer about voting, the complaint alleges, can convert an old registration into three separate federal charges. Immigration lawyers routinely warn green-card holders never to register or vote, even if a form is offered at a motor-vehicle office; this case is now the local example behind that warning.
Background: how noncitizen voting cases are built
Federal law reserves voting in federal elections to U.S. citizens, and states generally run registration on a signed attestation of citizenship rather than documentary proof at the counter — which is why these cases are usually discovered backwards, years later, when an applicant's naturalization file is checked against state voter rolls. That is the sequence the complaints describe in Passaic County: registration and ballots first, then an N-400 application, then a records check, then charges. The announcement's timing — charges unsealed the week before the November 3 midterm elections and ICE's public announcement on Election Day itself — also places the case inside the national argument over election integrity, in which prosecutors present such cases as proof the system catches violations, while the small number of cases relative to total ballots cast is cited by critics as evidence the phenomenon is rare. Both framings are political; the court record in Mitchell's case will turn only on his own registration, ballots and statements.
What happens next
Mitchell's case now moves through federal court in Newark: the government must present the complaint to a grand jury or proceed on the filed charges, Mitchell will enter a plea, and the naturalization application at the centre of the case is effectively frozen while the criminal matter is pending — a false-statement finding would also carry immigration consequences beyond any sentence, although no removal proceedings have been announced in the reporting so far. Morzetta's separate case follows the same path. Awaaz Punjab will follow both cases as court dates are set.