The reason a Green Bay ballot-box suspect never showed up in court last week is now official: he was no longer in the country. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has confirmed, in reporting published by WTAQ-WLUK on October 28, that Rolex Augustin, 32, a Haitian national charged in Brown County with attempted election fraud over a September 21 incident at Green Bay City Hall, had already been deported — removed from the United States on October 8, more than two weeks before his October 23 court hearing.
Source: WTAQ-WLUK via WNCY
An arrest warrant was issued after Augustin did not appear for the October 23 hearing, WTAQ-WLUK reported at the time, and it appears the federal government did not notify local officials about his status. The confirmation closes one question — where he was — and opens another that the reporting leaves unanswered: how a man under a pending local criminal charge, released on a signature bond, was removed by federal authorities without the county court being told before it issued a warrant for his non-appearance.
What the complaint says happened at City Hall
According to the criminal complaint, quoted by WTAQ-WLUK, City Hall staff noticed the security seal on a ballot box had been broken. A review of surveillance video showed a man later identified as Augustin approach the ballot box, remove the security seal, walk away, return moments later, and tug on the ballot box door before leaving the area.
The same complaint states that the ballot box remained secured and officers observed no damage to the box, its door or its lock, and the city confirmed that no ballots were accessed or compromised. After police used the video to identify and arrest him, the complaint says Augustin told officers he ‘did that on purpose’ because he wanted to be arrested and believed doing so would result in his deportation to Haiti — a statement attributed to the complaint, in a case where he has been charged but not convicted.
Source: WTAQ-WLUK via WNCY
Augustin was charged with one misdemeanour count of attempted election fraud — open a ballot box. That is an allegation filed by prosecutors, not a conviction, and the ballot-box case had not been tried when he was removed from the country.
The court timeline the deportation cut across
Augustin was charged on September 25, WTAQ-WLUK reported in its October 23 account. At that time he was in jail and a signature bond was set; county records show he was released from jail on September 30. Brown County Jail records showed an ICE detainer had been placed on him, though it was unclear in the October 23 reporting when that detainer may have been lifted, and searches of federal and state inmate rosters at that time showed no results for him.
A status conference was scheduled for the morning of October 23. Augustin did not show, so an arrest warrant was issued, according to court records cited by WTAQ-WLUK. ICE's statement, reported this week, explains the absence: “Augustin was placed in removal proceedings but failed to appear for his court date. Following due process, he was ordered removed on Sept. 16, 2025. ICE detained him and he was removed from the country on Oct. 8, 2026.”
Source: WTAQ-WLUK via WNCY
His immigration history, as the federal government tells it
The Department of Homeland Security provided further background to Border Hawk, which reported on October 27 that Augustin, a citizen of Haiti, entered the United States on November 28, 2022, near San Ysidro, California, and was placed in removal proceedings after failing to appear for his immigration court date, leading to the September 16, 2025 removal order. Border Hawk reported ICE detained him on September 27, 2026; ICE's statement to WTAQ-WLUK says he was detained and removed on October 8. Both accounts agree on the removal date itself: October 8, 2026.
ICE Assistant Director for Public Affairs Micah Bock framed the removal in a statement quoted by both outlets: “We are turning back the clock on the reckless policies of the Biden Administration. Criminal illegal aliens such as Rolex, who tamper with elections, dilute the votes of American citizens. Time ran out for Rolex, and the only ice on his wrist is a pair of handcuffs.” That is the agency's characterisation; the underlying ballot-box conduct remains an untried criminal allegation, as set out above.
Source: Border Hawk (DHS background)
Why the sequence matters in Green Bay
The case lands six days before the November 3 midterm elections, in a city hall where a ballot box was physically interfered with — and where, on the city's own confirmation, not a single ballot was accessed or damaged. For Green Bay voters, the verified core is narrow and reassuring: a broken seal, a secured box, no compromised ballots. For the court system, the sequence is messier: a county judge issued an arrest warrant on October 23 for a man federal authorities say they had already removed on October 8, apparently without local officials being notified.
For immigrant readers, the case is also a plain illustration of how the two systems run on separate tracks: a state misdemeanour case, with a bond and a court date, does not pause a federal removal order — here, an order that predated the ballot-box incident by more than a year — and removal can end a defendant's presence in a local case long before that case is heard.
What happens next
Wednesday's reporting does not say that the Brown County charge has been dismissed or resolved, and the October 23 arrest warrant was issued on the court record before ICE's confirmation became public. Whether prosecutors keep the misdemeanour case open against a defendant who is no longer in the country, and whether any notification practice between federal and county authorities changes, are the open questions the reporting leaves for the coming days — in the middle of an election week in which ballot security in Green Bay is already under a national spotlight.