M.D. Kittle writes for the Federalist about a key lesson from the recent high-profile case of an illegal alien who became a public school superintendent.
The 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.
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.”
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.
