A 30-year-old member of the U.S. Air Force stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri has been arrested and charged with immigration fraud after federal investigators say his own paperwork unraveled a years-old scheme in which his aunt posed as his mother to help him obtain a green card. His aunt, a 46-year-old Colorado resident, was arrested alongside him.
John Paule Rivera and his aunt, Myra Paule Schulenburg, were taken into custody in connection with the alleged fraud, according to KCTV. Federal prosecutors say Rivera entered the United States on a J-1 exchange visitor visa in March 2017, and that Schulenburg later submitted a petition to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services claiming to be his mother, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. That petition included an altered Philippine birth certificate, and it was approved, allowing Rivera to become a lawful permanent resident.
Schulenburg, who was born a citizen of the Philippines and later became a naturalized U.S. citizen herself, is Rivera's actual aunt rather than his mother, per the Justice Department. Without the green card status the scheme allegedly secured, Rivera would not have been able to join the Air Force at all, federal prosecutors say, since Title 10, Section 504 of the U.S. Code generally bars non-citizens from enlisting unless they hold lawful permanent resident status or citizenship in a small handful of Pacific nations.
A Sponsorship Filing For His Real Mother Backfires
Once in the Air Force, Rivera applied for naturalization while stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base in Johnson County, Missouri, taking advantage of Title 8, Section 1439 of the U.S. Code, which allows service members serving honorably to seek citizenship without meeting the standard five-year residency requirement. He became a U.S. citizen on October 11, 2022, in Springfield, Missouri. The scheme might have stayed buried had he not later tried to do right by his biological mother.
According to KCTV, Rivera filed a petition with USCIS to help his actual mother become a lawful permanent resident, attaching his authentic Philippine birth certificate to the filing. That document was submitted through the USCIS National Benefits Center in Lee's Summit, Missouri, the same centralized intake hub that had processed Schulenburg's earlier, altered filing. The genuine birth certificate conflicted directly with the fabricated one already on file, and Rivera's petition was flagged, triggering the investigation that led to both arrests.
Federal Charges And What Rivera Faces
Rivera has been charged with conspiracy to commit immigration fraud, unlawfully procuring citizenship, misuse of citizenship evidence, and making false statements under oath on immigration documents, as well as making false statements to a federal agency. He faces up to 10 years in prison on some of the immigration charges, according to KCTV. Rivera has denied giving false information to gain immigration benefits, per the outlet's reporting.
Beyond the criminal case, Rivera faces the possibility of denaturalization as an American citizen. Title 8, Section 1451 of the U.S. Code authorizes federal civil proceedings to revoke citizenship that was illegally procured or obtained through willful misrepresentation of material facts, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Schulenburg, meanwhile, has been charged with conspiracy to commit immigration fraud and faces up to five years in prison.
Whiteman AFB And A Wider Enforcement Push
The joint investigation was carried out by Homeland Security Investigations, the USCIS National Benefits Center, and the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations, with Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael J. Nichols prosecuting the case, per the Justice Department. Whiteman Air Force Base, home to the 509th Bomb Wing and the world's only operational base for the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, has been the site of other recent federal scrutiny — a Waterloo student was recently charged after admitting to photographing U.S. planes there for a Chinese contact.
The case also lands amid a broader Justice Department push. In June 2025, the department issued civil enforcement directives instructing federal prosecutors to prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization cases against people who illegally obtained citizenship through fraud or material misrepresentation. Military personnel have increasingly been swept into that effort; in July 2026, an Arlington-based National Guard major pleaded guilty to federal theft and visa charges tied to a fake divorce scheme documented in prior Hoodline reporting on that case.
It remains unclear how the criminal charges against Rivera will intersect with his current duty status at Whiteman Air Force Base, or whether the Justice Department will pursue a separate civil denaturalization action alongside the ongoing federal case.
