Marva Cook leads the quintessential American life.
A caretaker at heart, the 66-year-old has lived in the Syracuse area for virtually her entire life, where she has dedicated decades of service to children and the elderly.
After graduating from Syracuse University — where she set a women’s basketball record — Cook worked as a caretaker at Loretto for two decades, and has worked at the YMCA for the past eight years. Cook also cares for her 87-year-old cousin, who lives at home with her. She is an active member of the All Saints Church congregation, and volunteers throughout the city.
As a YMCA community coordinator, Cook spends most of her days finding ways to enrich the lives of kids around the city — but she spent Wednesday in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Cook’s life of service was interrupted earlier this month by a knock on the door from two ICE Homeland Security Investigations agents who accused her of casting fraudulent votes. That’s because, on paper, Cook technically isn’t a citizen, owing to the unusual circumstances that brought her to the United States more than six decades ago.
“I think this is a Moses story, how she was brought here, and then given to people who can care for her,” said Cook’s longtime friend Dale Avers.
Moses didn’t require a birth certificate, Avers said.
“Neither did Jesus,” said Rev. Fred Daley.
Born in Germany, Cook was brought to the U.S. at the age of two, and subsequently put up for adoption. Cook’s adoptive parents in 1962 filed an Application for Immigrant Visa and Alien Registration, according to ICE’s formal complaint.
In 2020, Cook changed her legal name from Mona Maria Kuehn to Marva Marie Cook and applied for an updated green card, according to a charging document filed by ICE in federal court. ICE HSI agents interviewed Cook on Oct. 5, according to charging documents.
During that conversation, agents allege Cook said she discovered she had a German birth certificate rather than a U.S. citizenship while looking for her biological mother and that she had recently obtained her green card.
Now, Cook is being charged with “voting by alien,” a federal offense that carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison, and a maximum fine of $100,000. As such, Cook was required to surrender herself to ICE’s authority on Wednesday morning.
But she didn’t go it alone.
Daley, Avers and fellow parishioners of the All Saints congregation stood with Cook as she prepared to turn herself into ICE custody at the agency’s Mattydale office with attorney Paul Tuck by her side.
“As I said in my prayer this morning, like Jesus, I need you to get this show out of my life, just like you did for Job, you did for Daniel, you did for Meshach and Abednego and all of them,” Cook said.
To Avers, who has called Cook a friend for over 20 years, the faith Cook exuded as she prepared to step into the unknown was rooted in her moral authority over those seeking to treat her as a criminal, Avers said.
“Her strength and her faith, again. And all of us share that with her,” Avers said. “It’s got to be power to the people, right? Ultimately, that’s what a democracy is, and that’s what we’re fighting. We’re fighting the tinted windows and the big old black SUVs.”
Then, Cook and Tuck entered the facility. Her supporters made arrangements to see her in federal court at the James M. Hanley Federal Building that afternoon, but not before remarking on the sheer abnormality of the circumstances that had brought them all to a parking lot outside a federal immigration facility.
“She’s a saint walking, honestly,” said Michael Songer, an employee at All Saints who became friends with Cook by coordinating children’s programs at the church.
Between all her other community service, Songer said, Cook finds time to dress up each Spring as the Easter Bunny to spread cheer among kids at the church and elsewhere in the community.
Songer said he never expected Cook would face circumstances like these.
The incident comes as President Trump’s administration continues to scour for evidence of rampant voter fraud, which Trump and his allies have routinely said has tilted the scales of recent elections in Democrats’ favor.
In reality, studies have repeatedly found voter fraud is a near non-existent problem that has not had any material impact on American elections.
“It just shows the nonsense across the country of voter fraud. Well, if this is what voter fraud is, it sort of blows their case a little bit,” Daley said. “But putting people through such pain and suffering just to [be] abusing people, it’s a form of abuse.”
Republicans and the conservative thinktank Heritage Foundation have sought to prove voter fraud, particularly driven by undocumented immigrants, is an existential threat to the American electoral system. But their own audits of voting registration rolls and citizenship data have disproven that claim, and the hunt for widespread voter fraud has instead demonstrated how uncommon fraudulent votes are.
Cook had to appear Wednesday morning at the ICE facility in Mattydale, after which she was transferred to the federal courthouse in downtown Syracuse.
Standing as tall as allowed by the shackles wrapped round her waist, wrist and ankles, Cook shuffled into a federal courtroom Wednesday afternoon under the watch of two men in T-shirts bearing U.S. Marshals Service insignia.
Cook had entered the Mattydale ICE facility Wednesday at 10 a.m. as a children’s social worker, caretaker of her 87-year-old cousin and an active member of the All Saints congregation. By 3:20 p.m., Cook — who has lived in the US for 65 years — was “an alien,” according to the federal prosecutor representing the US government in its case against Cook.
Tuck asked one of the marshals if he could loosen Cook’s restraints.
“Can’t. It’s policy,” the man responded. He spent the majority of the rest of the meeting looking at his cell phone, despite signs posted in and outside of the room that declared “ABSOLUTELY no cell phones, pagers, food or drink allowed in the courtroom NO EXCEPTIONS.”
Judge Mitchell Katz presided over the hearing, in which the federal government advanced a complaint that Cook had knowingly cast a fraudulent vote in the 2022 general election. A federal prosecutor agreed to a recommendation that Cook be released for the duration of her case, rather than being held in custody.
Cook’s hearing concluded in about 14 minutes. Fifteen minutes later, Tuck and Cook exited the building, greeted by cheers from their supporters. Cook, standing a little taller, described how the marshals refused to adjust her ankle manacles when she told them they were causing her pain, and said the process aggravated her torn meniscus.
Tuck said the decision to release Cook was the right one.
“Under federal law, you don’t detain someone unless there’s a risk of flight or danger to the community, and there’s absolutely no risk that Marva is not going to answer these charges and appear in court, and she’s obviously not a danger to the community, given her longstanding relationship with the church and our community and her history,” Tuck said.
Tuck and Cook left soon after her release. The gathered supporters’ jubilance and optimism were tinged with the sobering reality that Cook’s ordeal is far from over.
For Daley, seeing another member of his All Saints congregation caught in the dragnet of the Trump administration’s immigration and electoral crackdowns was galling.
“Seeing this microcosm of what’s happening all over the nation in every city, every village, every town, every state, it just is so sad,” Daley said. “None of this has to do with national security or protecting our borders or getting rid of criminals. It’s purely a cruel attempt in an authoritarian regime to have a scapegoat.”
Daley compared Nazi Germany’s scapegoating of the Jewish people to the Trump administration’s current treatment of “the undocumented, the immigrants and our trans children.”
The comment called back to an exchange with Avers in the morning, shortly after Cook had entered the ICE facility in Mattydale.
“What is that old poem, Fred? When they came for me, nobody was there?” Avers said, referencing Pastor Martin Niemöller’s enduring poem “First They Came.” The piece provides a harrowing warning that persecution of one marginalized group, if allowed to go unchecked, will lead to persecution of others in due time.
“That’s what we’re living right now. We have to stand up for each other because they’re coming,” Avers said. “I mean, to go after somebody like Marva?”
Read more of Central Current’s coverage
She’s lived her life as an American. ICE considers her an ‘alien’
President Donald Trump’s hunt for supposed widespread voter fraud has failed to yield evidence, but it has succeeded in upturning Syracuse resident Marva Cook’s life.
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