Washington State
ACCIDENTALLY VOTING
Canadian green card holders face deportation over voting allegations in Washington State
A Point Roberts woman says she never knowingly voted in a U.S. election. An immigration attorney says he's seeing an unprecedented crackdown on longtime residents.
Oct. 17, 2026
POINT ROBERTS, Wash. — A Canadian woman who has lived in Washington State for 14 years is fighting to remain in the United States after federal immigration officials accused her of falsely claiming U.S. citizenship and voting illegally.
Paige Adamson, a longtime Point Roberts resident and U.S. green card holder, says she was returning home from a birthday dinner in Canada in September when U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers stopped her at the border.
Instead of the routine crossing she had made countless times before, Adamson says officers immediately began questioning her about voting in American elections.
"They started asking me, ' Did you vote in any election? In the United States?" Adamson recalled. "Right when we pulled up."
She was detained and questioned for approximately six hours.
"I was shocked," Adamson said. "Within the first hour, I was like, what's going on here? This has never happened before."
According to Department of Homeland Security documents reviewed by KING 5, provided to Adamson on her way out of the incident at the border in September, federal officials allege Adamson falsely represented herself as a U.S. citizen and unlawfully voted.
Adamson denies knowingly registering to vote or casting a ballot.
"Yeah, I knew I couldn't vote," she said, referring to the rule that U.S. Permanent Residents cannot vote in federal elections.
When asked whether she had ever filled out a ballot, Adamson acknowledged she could not remember with certainty.
"I don't remember. I don't think so," she said. "I don't know anyone here. I don't follow politics. I wouldn't know who to vote for."
Adamson was released on her own recognizance and is scheduled to appear before an immigration judge in Seattle on Nov. 4.
Immigration attorney says he's seeing a dramatic change
Len Saunders, a Blaine-based immigration attorney who has practiced for 25 years, says Adamson is among several Canadian permanent residents he has recently encountered facing similar allegations.
Saunders, who is originally from Canada and became a naturalized U.S. citizen, says mistakenly registering to vote is not a new problem.
What has changed, he says, is how federal immigration authorities are responding.
"So now what I'm seeing is completely different than what I've seen for the last 25 years," Saunders said. "I've been doing this for now four or five administrations and it is completely different how the federal government is treating these individuals who, most of them unknowingly or they were just naive, registered to vote or voted."
Saunders estimates he has encountered approximately a dozen cases annually over the years involving Canadian permanent residents who registered to vote or voted despite not being U.S. citizens.
He says some mistakenly believed their green cards entitled them to vote. Others encountered voter registration opportunities while obtaining or renewing driver's licenses.
"[They] either went into DMV and registered because there was no kind of questions on their citizenship and they naively thought that they could do it," Saunders said. "Or they just received in the mail a voter registration card."
In some cases, Saunders says, people subsequently received ballots and cast votes without understanding the potential immigration consequences.
Previously, he says, his clients could often correct the issue by canceling their voter registration and acknowledging the mistake during the naturalization process.
READ MORE:
king5.com/article/news/commu…
@CivilRights
@AAGDhillon