Morning Wire (Daily Wire)October 4, 202511m

Illegal Iowa Superintendent Exposed

Showing mention at 9:28 — highlighted below

Transcript

28 segments
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And he was given that final order to be removed in May of 2024. He was never a U.S. citizen, though he apparently falsely claimed to be. We also know that he had six children with five different women. He disclosed that on this immigration application. That's according to reporting from the Daily Wires, Jenny Tare. His two oldest were born in Guyana and the others were born in the U.S. As far as resume discrepancies, John Roberts apparently obtained a doctorate from an online school a few years back. But he was claiming potentially a decade earlier that he had a doctorate. Here's Civil Liberties attorney Laura Jerome Powell on that. He claimed many times over the years to have a doctorate from Morgan State University. I don't know. It's possibly he did coursework there. But he was calling himself doctor at least as early as 2012. But he didn't get his doctorate until 2021. So he pretended he had one from Morgan State. Now, despite his immigration status, his criminal background, and potential lies on his resume, John Roberts worked in education for more than 20 years. He was a teacher, a principal, and he was a superintendent, not just in Des Moines, but previously at a Pennsylvania school district as well. In light of all this, initially the Des Moines School Board, they held an emergency meeting and they put John Roberts on paid leave. The state then revoked his license to be a superintendent, and he resigned on September 30th. How did this happen? How did John Roberts slip through the cracks? Yeah, I mean, it seems like a pretty egregious oversight here. You know, we spoke to Jerome Powell for more information on that. And she sees it twofold. First, you know, John Roberts simply being a con man and a liar. But also this ties into this obsession with DEI goals and initiatives that can blind a lot of people. And yet it does seem that the numerous background checks he's gone through through professional agencies somehow missed all of these major red flags. You know, he's lied a lot about various basic facts about himself, where he was born, when he was born, what degrees he has. Those are the big ones that really seems like somebody should have caught before he got to the point where he's in his second superintendent job. pretty clear he was not born in Brooklyn, was not raised there. And, you know, it's kind of absurd on its face that nobody noticed that he had a foreign accent when he claimed to be born and raised in Brooklyn. You know, nobody seemed to have asked more questions. Here's what Jerome Powell had to specifically say about how DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion possibly ties in here. I think the reason why he was able to con them goes to this trend in our education system. of DEI that people wanted. You look at Des Moines School Board, they talk about how they need to have more diversity in their staff. And I think they were very happy to have a black man who seemed to be perfect come in and they didn't want to ask questions. And besides the fact that, you know, we're taught, it's a microaggression to ask people questions like, where are you from? If the person has an accent, I think people...

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were hesitant to question him too hard. That's my, you know, what I imagine was going on with these school board members who were an all-female school board and they seemed really enthralled by him. Now, on this whole, DEIB, the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division on Tuesday, they launched an investigation into Des Moines Public Schools to determine if they're engaging in illegal race-based employment practices. The DOJ highlighted the district's website, and that says that they require their teaching and learning staff to match the student population in terms of demographics and cultural responsivity. The district also apparently set goals to increase its number of teachers of color. That was part of an affirmative action plan. And they said they were prioritizing voices of people of color in addition to other DEI initiatives. Now commenting on this investigation, Harmeet Dillon, who's the assistant attorney general for the civil rights division, she tied this into immigration law. On acts, she wrote quotes, be on notice. If you ignore federal immigration laws, we may investigate you too. Now, another interesting tie in here is that the chair of the Des Moines School Board is Jackie Norris. Now, she was chief of staff to former First Lady Michelle Obama back in 2009. She's currently running for U.S. Senate as a Democrat in Iowa. Norris said that John Roberts stated he was a citizen on his I-9 employment eligibility form and he provided a driver's license and a social security card when he was hired. Here's Norris in her own words. The individual who was leading our district with energy and enthusiasm was detained by ICE agents. Since that time, this district, the Iowa Department of Education, the Department of Homeland Security, and others have learned that his citizenship and status and eligibility to work in the United States is not what we were led to believe. New details have led to more questions, really important questions. For all of us, this is not what we anticipated when we welcomed Dr. Ian John Roberts into Central Iowa and the Des Moines School District a little more than two years ago. It is a sad and troubling end for an individual who gave many people, especially our students, hope. Is anyone else from the district commenting on this? Did they run proper background checks? So the Des Moines Public School Communications Director, Phil Roder, he said that a background check was conducted by a third party before John Roberts was hired. Baker Eubanks, the company used to run this background check. They told the Daily Wire that they disclosed that John Roberts had this criminal history, but the district went ahead to hire him anyway. They didn't find anything on his immigration status, though, apparently. Now, additionally, reporting again from Jenny Tare shows that John Roberts was never run through the federal E-Verify system. That's the system that checks to see if workers are in the country legally and if they're eligible to work. In fact, it seems that Des Moines Public Schools actually never enrolled in E-Verify at all. But was the district mandated to run John Roberts through E-Verify?

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So Iowa doesn't require employers to use E-Verify, but currently there is a bill pending that would require this from Iowa employers. Unsurprisingly, this specific case has sparked a lot of calls for E-Verify to be mandated everywhere. Scott Mokowski, who has decades of experience in immigration enforcement, and he recently testified before Congress about ICE, he told the Daily Wire, quote, the hiring of an undocumented individual with a criminal history and a deportation order into a position of educational leadership exposes a profound vulnerability in our systems, one that E-Verify could have sealed at the outset. Makowski added that this is not merely an oversight, but it's a betrayal of public trust. He said it demands immediate reform to safeguard our institutions and communities. Another direct quote, how many more are out there pass a verify immediately? You know, so a lot of calls for change as this all continues to unfold. We've seen a lot of calls to action after some other standout illegal immigration cases. Oftentimes those are really brutal and fatal. We'll just have to see how this one shakes out. Yeah, we'll see where this goes. Really a remarkable, frankly, unbelievable case that exposes a lot of institutions as you've laid out. Amanda, thanks for reporting. You're welcome. That was Daily Wire reporter Amanda Presta Giacomo, and this has been a weekend edition of Morning Wire.