Dr. Roberts’s Neighborhood
ICE has arrested Ian Andre Roberts, “a criminal illegal alien from Guyana in possession of a loaded handgun, $3,000 in cash and a fixed blade hunting knife. At the time of his arrest, Roberts was working as the Superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools despite being an illegal alien with a final order of removal and no work authorization.” When federal officers approached Roberts, he sped away in a vehicle provided by the school district.
“It is a violation of federal law for those in the U.S. without legal status to possess a firearm and ammunition,” ICE said, and Roberts “has existing weapon possession charges from February 5, 2020.” The criminal illegal “entered the United States in 1999 on a student visa and was given a final order of removal by an immigration judge in May of 2024,” during the administration of Joe Biden. ICE now has their man, and there’s more to his story.
On May 16, 2023, noted Byron York in the Washington Examiner, the Des Moines school board hired Roberts for a base salary of $270,000, and by the end of July got surprising news. The new superintendent had been named in a $250,000 settlement with Melody Ellington of the Millcreek Township School District in Pennsylvania, who complained of “unlawful treatment” under Roberts. He also left behind settlements of $87,500 and $66,000 with employees Roberts had demoted, sticking Millcreek with legal settlements totaling $403,500. This record somehow escaped the Des Moines school board, which in June 2024 gave Roberts a pay boost of 3.5 percent and a three-year contract extension.
Superintendent Roberts “did not obtain a doctoral degree from a Maryland university, as he has claimed for many years,” noted the Des Moines Register. Roberts did attend Morgan State from 2002 to 2007, but failed to complete a degree in “urban educational leadership.” Roberts also falsely claimed that he attended the Sloan School of Management at MIT and received a “principal of the year” award from George Washington University.
On the other hand, Roberts did succeed in becoming a registered voter, despite not being a U.S. citizen and not living in Maryland for many years. So the criminal illegal is part of the imported electorate, a group pioneered and nurtured in California through a process of two steps forward and no steps back. A look at how that works may explain Roberts’s game to Californicate America.
California Assembly Bill 60, passed in 2013, authorized those illegally present in the United States to get driver’s licenses. Assembly Bill 1461 the “California New Motor Voter Act,” registered them to vote when they get their licenses, adding millions of “California citizens”—code for illegals in the style of “undocumented”—to the voter rolls. Secretary of State Alex Padilla wouldn’t say how many “California citizens” voted in 2016 and declined to participate in a federal probe of voter fraud. In 2021, Gov. Newsom appointed Padilla to replace Kamala Harris, transforming California’s voter-fraud boss into the senator nobody voted for.
Gov. Newsom rewards the illegals with in-state tuition, welfare, and medical benefits. As Katy Grimes of the California Globe notes, Newsom “gifted free Medi-Cal coverage to every illegal immigrant in the state, costing taxpayers $23 billion over two years, forcing Newsom to get both an emergency loan and a bailout.” Long before this largesse, squads of politiqueros bribed and threatened illegals to vote for Democrats.
In 2018, Gavin Newsom won the governor’s race with 61.9 percent of the vote. In 2020, he imposed a draconian COVID regime of lockdowns, shutdowns, and masking, while partying sans mask with lobbyists at upscale restaurant The French Laundry. Gov. Newsom also presided over an unemployment scandal to the tune of more than $30 billion. These and other lapses prompted the people to recall the coiffed governor.
In 2021, Newsom prevailed with 61.9 percent of the vote, identical to 2018. For “coincidence theorists” it was pure happenstance, with no hint of fraud. And nobody checked to see how many votes came from illegals registered by the DMV, who were also recipients of government benefits. In California, those benefits are quite extensive. Senate Bill 54, the state’s sanctuary law, protects the imported electorate from deportation. Democrats have also given government jobs to illegals.
In 2018, the state senate rules committee appointed Lizbeth Mateo, a Mexican “immigration activist” living illegally in the United States, to California’s Student Opportunity and Access Program Project Grant Advisory Committee. In Iowa, Guyana national Ian Roberts got to run a school district, an ideal position for dishing out benefits to cronies and those illegally present in the United States.
Roberts’ biggest booster was Jackie Norris, chair of the Des Moines school board. Norris was chief of staff for Michelle Obama and worked on the campaign of Barack Obama. As it happens, Jackie Norris is running for the U.S. Senate, hoping to unseat Republican Joni Ernst. Iowans have a right to wonder if Roberts’ illegal registration as a voter was a factor in his selection. That would align with Democrat policy on the border.
By bringing in more than 10 million illegals, Joe Biden hoped to replicate California’s imported electorate nationwide. That should explain why Gov. Newsom and other Democrats oppose any attempt to deport illegals, even the violent criminals among them. As Orwell explained in Animal Farm, rats are comrades.
The politiqueros are gearing up the imported electorate for the Nov. 4 vote on California’s Proposition 50—which will permit Democrats to gerrymander away nearly all Republican districts in the state, with crucial midterms just around the corner. Anyone who approves voting by illegals, or voter fraud in any form, forfeits any claim to support the rule of law. At this writing, illegal voter Ian Roberts remains in ICE custody as his attorneys seek to “pause his deportation and reopen his case.”