Illegal Immigrant Indicted for Alleged Voter Fraud in Texas

A Salvadoran national, who Texas prosecutors say has been living illegally in the state since the 1980s, was indicted by a federal grand jury for alleged voter fraud and other immigration violations.

On Friday, Joseph Brown, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas, announced that Mario Obdulio Orellana, 57, was named in a five-count indictment earlier in June. The feds charged him with two counts of false representation of U.S. citizenship, giving a false statement in a passport application, the unauthorized use of a Social Security number, and voter fraud.

Orellana allegedly entered the U.S. illegally from El Salvador in the early 1980s, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. In 1987, while illegally residing in Shelby County, Texas, Orellana purportedly falsified documents to obtain a birth certificate that showed he was born in the United States. He then applied for and received a U.S. passport and a Social Security number. Prosecutors said Orellana also claimed to be a U.S. citizen when registering to vote and cast a fraudulent ballot in the November 2016 presidential election.

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