he illegal alien who ran Iowa’s largest public school district before being apprehended by ICE claimed to be a U.S. citizen on his Maryland voter registration forms, according to records obtained by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF).
Ian Andre Roberts’ apparent false claim of citizenship exposes Maryland’s election integrity vulnerabilities and proves the need for better immigration status vetting, a foundation official asserts. The case also screams for congressional passage of a bill requiring documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in federal elections.
‘Maryland Could Have Prevented This’
On Monday, Prince George’s County finally released to PILF Roberts’ unredacted registration files, showing that — on at least two occasions — the foreign national from Guyana facing multiple criminal charges appears to have attested that he was a U.S. citizen on regular voter registration applications. As PILF notes, regular registration includes all elections, not just elector rights Maryland has extended to foreign nationals to vote in some local elections.
Roberts lived in Maryland for several years, working as a teacher and a school administrator. He wasn’t a U.S. citizen then, just as he wasn’t when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested the Des Moines Public Schools superintendent in late September.
“Maryland could have prevented this had it used SAVE for voter registration verification when the Obama Administration first offered it,” wrote Logan Churchwell, research director for the nonprofit election integrity watchdog, in a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. “It is incumbent on Maryland and DHS work together to protect citizens and immigrants alike.”
‘It Has Never Been Easier’
The SAVE system, short for Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, assists federal, state, and local benefits-processing- and distribution-agencies check the immigration status of benefit applicants. SAVE is supposed to save taxpayers from picking up the tab for illegal immigrants and others not entitled to receive public assistance.
But the system also has been used as a critical tool for states to verify that only U.S. citizens are voting in U.S. elections. Just 26 states are using or in the process of implementing the system to verify the eligibility of registrants, according to Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Maryland is not one of those states. In fact, the leftist attorney general for the blue state recently bragged about co-leading a coalition of 16 leftist attorneys general in supporting “California’s motion to dismiss a federal lawsuit demanding complete, unredacted voter registration databases from states across the country.”
PILF’s Churchwell included Maryland State Board of Elections Administrator Jared DeMarinis in his recommendation letter. Churchwell reminded DeMarinis that USCIS dramatically improved SAVE in April and November when the agency allowed queries with just the last four digits of a Social Security number. So the data on the standard Maryland voter registration form is “all that is required for a successful SAVE query.”
“It has never been easier for Maryland to adopt this tool,” the election integrity advocate wrote.
Hellbound and Down 