Northeast

Legal threat cracks open voter records for illegal school superintendent nabbed by ICE

Published

3 months ago

December 8, 2025

Legal threat cracks open voter records for illegal school superintendent nabbed by ICE

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A Maryland board of elections backed down in the face of legal threat from conservative groups and released unredacted voter registration records belonging to an illegal immigrant who served as the superintendent of Iowa’s largest school system, Fox News Digital has learned.

The records showed illegal immigrant Ian Andre Roberts, who is originally from Guyana, claimed to be a U.S. citizen.

“The records show us what we all know – Maryland is not serious about keeping noncitizens off the voter rolls,” American Accountability Foundation (AAF) chief Tom Jones, a conservative research group that advocated for the release of the voter registration records, said in a press release provided to Fox News Digital. “Sadly, there are likely thousands more non-citizens on Maryland’s voter rolls.”

The Prince George’s Board of Elections provided conservative legal group Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE) and AAF with unredacted versions of Ian Andre Roberts’ registration documents after initially releasing heavily redacted versions of the documents that blacked out Roberts’ sex, whether he checked the citizenship box, his date of birth and other information.

HEAVILY REDACTED VOTING RECORDS FOR SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT NABBED BY ICE SPARK OUTRAGE

Republicans say that illegal immigrant Ian Andre Roberts being registered to vote in Maryland raises serious concerns about the state’s voting processes. (Keith Srakocic/AP Photo and ICE)

The fresh documents, RITE said in a press release provided to Fox News Digital on Tuesday, show “Roberts affirmatively claimed U.S. citizenship on his voter-registration application, and that Maryland election officials took his word for it.” A copy of the unredacted documents reviewed by Fox News Digital on Tuesday morning show Roberts checked the “yes” box when asked “Are you a U.S. citizen?”

Roberts, who first entered the U.S. in 1994, was working as the superintendent of the Des Moines public school district when Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested him in September. Roberts was not legally permitted to work in the country after an employment authorization card expired in 2020, Fox News Digital previously reported.

The arrest of an illegal immigrant working in such a high-profile school position shocked conservatives and others, as additional details surrounding his lengthy rap sheet in the U.S. surfaced as journalists and other investigators looked into his history. Amid scrutiny over his past, it was soon discovered that Roberts was listed as a registered Democratic voter in Maryland, where he previously lived.

The Maryland State Board of Elections previously said Roberts did not vote in elections.

The revelation that Roberts checked in the affirmative that he was a U.S. citizen on voter registration documents further opens the door to scrutiny over illegal immigrants potentially voting in elections. RITE pointed to the Maryland Board of Elections previously stating that noncitizens are canceled from registration records after the “State Board of Elections (SBE) or a local board receive information regarding citizenship status by the voter, ‘self-report’ or a report to the jury commissioners” as a cause of concern for Maryland’s current voter removal process.

Former Des Moines superintendent Ian Andre Roberts, who was detained by ICE, was federally charged. (Polk County Sheriff)

“This case demonstrates exactly why Congress enacted the NVRA’s public disclosure mandate,” RITE CEO and President Justin Riemer said of the release of the records in December. “When election officials attempt to hide eligibility records, the public loses the ability to verify that the law is being followed. Once the records were produced, we saw just how weak Maryland’s safeguards really are. This is unfortunately all too common around the country and federal laws do little to help stop noncitizens from registering to vote.”

SCHOOL CHIEF TO SUSPECT: ICE ARREST OF DES MOINES SUPERINTENDENT EXPOSES FAKE DEGREES, DRUG CONVICTIONS

RITE and AAF filed a request for Roberts’ voter registration documents earlier this year under the National Voter Registration Act – a federal law that simplified voter registration processes when an eligible individual renews their driver’s license – and subsequently received heavily redacted records that did not include how he answered the citizenship question or even his designated sex.

Riemer led the charge in sending a letter to the Prince George’s County Board of Elections in November demanding the county turn over the records with fewer redactions as allowed by law. The election attorney, who previously served as chief counsel to the Republican National Committee, gave the county board until Dec. 1 while noting legal action could be in the future if the election board failed to comply.

Riemer joined Fox News Digital in a Zoom interview in November to discuss the voter registration records, redactions and Robert’s immigration case, summing it up as “shocking.”

“When I saw the news reporting, and they showed screenshots of the registration applications with all this information redacted, I was just shocked,” Riemer said last month.

“I’m an election law expert, not an immigration expert, but it doesn’t take one to see just how … broken the system has been,” Riemer said. “He has multiple criminal charges. He has worked in multiple school districts where, if they were doing the proper citizenship and work authorization checks, this should have been caught. It’s really just unbelievable how this guy has managed to jump around the country, working in school districts where he’s around children.”

FORMER DES MOINES SCHOOLS SUPERINTENDENT TAKEN INTO DOJ CUSTODY ON FEDERAL FIREARMS, IMMIGRATION CHARGES

RITE took a victory lap in its press release announcing the unredacted documents, stating, “Rather than defend their position in court, county officials backed down and produced the unredacted records.”

It is unclear why the ICE agents conducted the early morning traffic stop. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Roberts was taken into the U.S. Marshals’ custody following his September arrest and is set to be prosecuted, DHS said in October. The federal agency has released the suspect’s lengthy history of run-ins with the law that stretch back to 1996, when he was charged with criminal possession of narcotics with intent to sell in New York.

Most recently, facing charges related to his arrest in September, which included him attempting to flee law enforcement officers, according to DHS. He was found to be in possession of $3,000 in cash, a Glock 9 mm pistol and a hunting knife at the time of his arrest. Roberts was criminally charged on Oct. 2 with being an illegal immigrant in possession of firearms, according to DHS.

Roberts is no longer employed by the Iowa school system, with the Board of Educational Examiners revoking Roberts’ license following his arrest in September.

Fox News Digital reached out to the county and state boards of elections on Tuesday morning for additional comment on Roberts’ records, the state’s vetting process for noncitizens on voter roles and response to RITE’s press release, but did not immediately receive replies.

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Related Topics:Elections immigration Maryland

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Northeast

Family claims casino staff mistook veteran’s illness for intoxication, delaying care before his death

Published

4 hours ago

February 28, 2026

Press Room

Family claims casino staff mistook veteran’s illness for intoxication, delaying care before his death

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A “proud veteran of the U.S. Army” died after suffering a medical emergency while visiting Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip, where, according to a lawsuit, employees and security guards allegedly “presumed, incorrectly” that he was drunk and called him an Uber instead of seeking medical help.

According to a wrongful-death complaint obtained by the Las Vegas Review Journal, 64-year-old Gary Perrin was gambling at Caesars Palace in November 2024 when he began exhibiting “visible signs” of an undisclosed illness. The symptoms allegedly included “sudden onset of sweating, double vision, dizziness and vomiting.”

“Due to, but not limited to, a lack of training, a lack of supervision, laziness, being overworked and tired, profiling, and or a lack of policies and procedures, it was presumed, incorrectly, that Perrin was intoxicated,” the complaint read.

U.S. Army veteran Gary Perrin’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Caesars Palace, claiming casino workers allegedly failed to provide medical attention in November 2024. (Care Cremation & Burial )

Workers decided to “call an Uber/Lyft instead of onsite paramedics or EMR transport” for Perrin, leading to a “critical delay of medical care that ultimately led to, caused, or contributed substantially to his death” weeks later, the lawsuit claimed.

Perrin’s family said that the casino had knowledge of the victim’s serious illness, and yet “did not render immediate and/or reasonable medical attention nor did they take steps to call for medical attention.”

Caesars Palace hotel and casino in Las Vegas. (Bridget Bennett/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

In the lawsuit, Perrin’s family did not disclose how he died but said the employees’ decision to call a rideshare over an ambulance allegedly led to “severe injuries, including but not limited [to] surgical scars and disfigurement, pain and suffering, and loss of life.”

His family is seeking $15,000 from the iconic Las Vegas strip resort, according to the lawsuit.

Aerial view of Las Vegas Strip. A 64-year-old U.S. Army veteran died after suffering a medical emergency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, where a lawsuit alleges staff mistakenly presumed he was drunk and called a rideshare instead of paramedics. (iStock)

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An obituary for Perrin describes him as a proud veteran who served for four years and then worked for UPS.

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He retired from the shipping company after 29 years of “dedicated service,” then worked as an assistant to the dean of students and football coach at Goffstown High School in New Hampshire. In his later years, he also worked as a driver at the Maher Center in Middletown, Rhode Island, until his death.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Caesars for comment.

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New York

How a Parks Worker Lives on $37,500 in Tompkinsville, Staten Island

Published

5 hours ago

February 28, 2026

Press Room

How a Parks Worker Lives on ,500 in Tompkinsville, Staten Island

How can people possibly afford to live in one of the most expensive cities on the planet? It’s a question New Yorkers hear a lot, often delivered with a mix of awe, pity and confusion.

We surveyed hundreds of New Yorkers about how they spend, splurge and save. We found that many people — rich, poor or somewhere in between — live life as a series of small calculations that add up to one big question: What makes living in New York worth it?

Sara Robinson boarded a Greyhound bus from Oregon to New York City to attend Hunter College in the early 2000s, bright-eyed and eager to pick up odd jobs to fuel her dream of living there.

For a long time, she made it work. But recently, that has been more challenging than ever.

Right around her 40th birthday, Ms. Robinson began to feel financially squeezed in Brooklyn, where she had lived for years. Ms. Robinson (no relation to this reporter) was also feeling too grown to live with roommates.

“As a child,” she said, “you don’t think you’re going to have a roommate at 40.” She decided to move into a place of her own: a one-bedroom apartment in the Tompkinsville neighborhood of Staten Island.

After she moved, the preschool where she’d worked for over a decade closed. Now, she works two jobs. She is a seasonal employee for the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, working from Tuesday to Saturday. And on Monday nights, she sells concessions at the West Village movie theater Film Forum, which pays $25 an hour plus tips.

Ms. Robinson, now 45, loves her job as an environmental educator at a state park on Staten Island. Her team runs the park’s social media accounts and comes up with event programming, like a recent project tapping maple trees to make syrup.

But the role is temporary. Her last stint was from June 2024 to January 2025. Then she was unemployed until August 2025. Ms. Robinson’s current contract will be up in April, unless she gets an extension or a different parks job opens up.

Ms. Robinson’s biweekly pay stubs from the parks department amount to about $1,300 before taxes. She barely felt a difference, she said, while she was out of work and pocketing around $880 every two weeks from her unemployment checks. (Her previous parks gig paid $1,100 a check.)

Living in New York’s Greenest Borough

“It used to be, ‘There’s no way I’m moving to Staten Island,’” Ms. Robinson said. “But the place is close to the water. I’m three minutes from the ferry. The rest is history.” She lives on the third floor of a multifamily house, above an art studio and another tenant. Her rent is $1,600 a month, plus $125 in utilities, including her phone bill.

“If my situation changes, I don’t know if I could find something similar,” she said. “So much of my New York life has been feeling trapped to an apartment. You get a place for a good price, and you’re like, ‘I can’t leave now.’”

Staten Island is convenient for Ms. Robinson’s parks job, but it’s become harder to justify living in a borough where she knows few people. It takes more than an hour to get to friends in Brooklyn, an especially hard trek during the winter. After four years of living on Staten Island, Ms. Robinson feels somewhat isolated.

“All my friends on Staten Island are senior citizens,” she said. “It’s great. I love it. But I do want friends closer to my age.”

One of Ms. Robinson’s friends, Ray, took her on nature walks and taught her about tree identification, sparking an interest in mycology, the study of mushrooms. This led to a productive — and free — fungi foraging hobby during unemployment. She has found all sorts of mushrooms, including, after a month of searching, the elusive morel.

The Budgeting Game

Ms. Robinson doesn’t update her furniture often, but when she does, she shops stoop sales in Park Slope or other parts of Brooklyn.

“It’s like a treasure hunt,” she said. “You could make a whole apartment off the street, off the stuff that people throw away.”

She also makes a game out of grocery shopping, biking to Sunset Park in Brooklyn or Manhattan’s Chinatown to go to stores where there are better deals. She budgets about $300 for groceries each month.

Ms. Robinson bikes almost everywhere, sometimes traveling a little farther to enter the Staten Island Railway at one of the stations that don’t charge a fare. She spends $80 a month on subway and ferry fares, and $5 a month for a discounted Citi Bike membership she gets through a credit union, though she usually uses her own bike. She is handy and does repairs herself.

There are certain splurges — Ms. Robinson drops $400 once or twice a year on round-trip airfare to Seattle, where her family lives. She also spent $100 last year to see a concert at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens.

She said she has many financial saving graces. She has no student loans and no car to make payments on. She doesn’t get health insurance from her jobs, but she qualifies for Medicaid.

She mostly eats at home, though sometimes friends will treat her to dinner. She repays them with tickets to Film Forum movies.

Nothing Beats the Twinkling Lights

Ms. Robinson’s friends often talk about leaving the city — and the country.

Two friends have their eyes set on Sweden, where they hope to get the affordable child care and social safety net they are struggling to access in New York.

Ms. Robinson can’t see herself moving elsewhere in the United States, but she is entertaining the idea of an international move if she can’t hack it on Staten Island.

Yet the pull of the city is hard for her to resist.

“I just get a rush when I’m riding the Staten Island Ferry across the bay,” she said. “You see all the little twinkling lights. It’s this feeling of, ‘everything is possible here.’”

That feeling, plus the many friendly faces Ms. Robinson sees every day — the ferry operators, the conductors on the Staten Island Railway, her co-workers at Film Forum — are what tie her to New York.

“My savings are not increasing, so there’s that,” she said. “But I’ve been OK so far. I think I’m going to figure it out.”

Boston, MA

‘We’re honoring Black excellence’: Mass. celebrates leaders of color

Published

6 hours ago

February 28, 2026

Press Room

‘We’re honoring Black excellence’: Mass. celebrates leaders of color

Applause and music echoed through the Hall of Flags at the Massachusetts State House Friday as lawmakers and community leaders gathered for the Black Excellence on the Hill and the Latino Excellence Awards.

The ceremony celebrates Black and brown residents committed to advancing economic equity.

“We’re honoring Black excellence,” said state Rep. Chris Worrell. “When we look at today, this is what it should look like. This is our house. Black people built this house, literally and figuratively.”

Honorees ranged from attorneys to former professional athletes. Nicole M. Bluefort of the Law Offices of Nicole Bluefort said she plans to use her platform to uplift others.

“I will use my advocacy skills as an attorney to move people forward,” she said.

Former NBA player Wayne Seldan Jr. talked about his journey from McDonald’s All American to a full scholarship at Kansas and a professional career.

“You always want to keep striving for continued betterment and for stuff to grow,” he said. “I don’t think there should be mountaintops. I think we should always be striving to keep building.”

The keynote address was delivered by Michelle Brown, mother of Jaylen Brown, who spoke about raising two children as a single mother and the importance of faith, discipline and education.

“There are no shortcuts. There are no guarantees,” she said. “There was faith, there was discipline, and there was a deep belief that education created mobility.”

Speakers emphasized that mobility is strengthened when communities work together for a common good. Bluefort highlighted the importance of mentorship and shared opportunity, while state Rep. Sally Kerans encouraged attendees to stand together across racial lines.

“In this moment, stand with others. Speak up. Don’t be afraid to say ‘That’s not normal.’ Be allies. Be supportive,” Kerans said.

Organizers said the ceremony was not only about recognition, but also about sustaining progress — encouraging leaders and residents alike to continue building toward a more equitable future.

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