Iowa hiring controversy renews debate over E-Verify and gaps in employment checks

The high-profile arrest of former Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Ian Roberts for overstaying a deportation order has reignited debate over how Iowa verifies who is eligible to work — and whether the state should require all employers to use the federal E-Verify system.

The controversy has exposed gaps in employment and licensing verification systems that critics say allowed Roberts to be hired and licensed despite allegedly lacking legal authorization to work in the U.S. It also has spurred a renewed push from some Republican leaders to tighten oversight and expand mandatory use of federal verification programs.

In response, Gov. Kim Reynolds on Wednesday signed an executive order directing all state agencies to begin using the federal E-Verify and SAVE systems to confirm the employment eligibility of state workers and the citizenship or immigration status of individuals applying for state-issued occupational and professional licenses.

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Reynolds said the directive was intended to “put safeguards in place” following the Des Moines case.

After Des Moines hiring scandal, lawmakers eye broader mandate

The governor’s order comes as state lawmakers weigh whether to go further by requiring all public employers — or all Iowa businesses — to use E-Verify. The debate reignited after Roberts’ arrest raised questions about verification gaps in both state licensing and local hiring.

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The Associated Press reported that Ian Roberts, a native of Guyana, first came to the United States in 1994 on a nonimmigrant visa and returned five years later on an F-1 student visa that was set to expire in March 2004. His application for a green card was denied in 2003.

Roberts later received work authorization from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in 2018, but the Department of Homeland Security said that authorization expired in December 2020.

According to both the district and the AP, Roberts signed a form when he was hired attesting that he was a U.S. citizen and presented a Social Security card and driver’s license for verification. District officials said they were unaware that an immigration judge had issued a final removal order in 2024 or that a judge had denied Roberts’ request to reopen his immigration case in April of this year.

The controversy has exposed how gaps in verification systems can allow false information or expired documents to slip through, prompting renewed scrutiny of hiring practices in Des Moines and across Iowa.

Iowa is among the majority of states that do not require most employers to use E-Verify, which compares information from an employee’s Form I-9 with U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration records. Only federal contractors are required to participate under federal law; for everyone else, use of the system is voluntary.

Des Moines case triggers scrutiny

Following Roberts’ arrest, Iowa Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley asked DHS to review the district’s hiring practices. DHS found no record of Des Moines Public Schools enrolling in E-Verify and said Roberts “should not have possessed any valid documentation evidencing employment authorization.” If an expired work authorization document had been submitted through E-Verify, DHS said, it would have flagged him.

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The Iowa Department of Education noted that verifying work authorization is the employer’s duty, not the licensing board’s.

“Dr. Roberts stated that he was a U.S. citizen on the application for administrator licensure under penalty of perjury,” the department said, adding that the Board of Educational Examiners conducts standard background checks but not federal work authorization reviews.

The department said it is now reviewing the district’s hiring procedures “to ensure proper verification of employees’ legal work status.”

Meanwhile, the Des Moines School Board voted to sue JG Consulting, the firm that led its superintendent search, alleging it failed to identify false statements and verify Roberts’ credentials. The firm’s attorney said Roberts provided Form I-9 documentation attesting to his legal ability to work.

Lawmakers signal renewed interest

Some Republican state lawmakers said Reynolds’ order could be a first step toward broader mandates.

State Sen. Julian Garrett, R-Indianola, said he plans to reintroduce legislation in the 2026 session to require all Iowa employers to use the federal E-Verify system to confirm the work eligibility of new hires. Garrett was the floor manager of Senate File 108, a bill that cleared the Iowa Senate in 2024 on a party-line 30-17 vote but stalled in the Iowa House amid concerns from some Republican leaders about unintended consequences for small businesses.

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Garrett said Gov. Kim Reynolds’ recent executive order requiring state agencies to use E-Verify and SAVE is “a good start,” but noted that his bill would extend the requirement to all public and private employers. He described E-Verify as “simple” and said its error rate is minimal, arguing the system has improved over time. He dismissed calls for a pilot program, saying a mandatory statewide requirement would better ensure compliance with federal law prohibiting the hiring of unauthorized workers.

Garrett expressed optimism that the Des Moines Public Schools hiring controversy — which prompted Reynolds’ executive order — could shift momentum in the House after years of reluctance.

Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley, R-New Hartford, said the House Government Oversight Committee has requested records from Des Moines Public Schools to determine what went wrong.

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“First things first — we need more answers on how the Des Moines Public Schools found themselves in this position,” Grassley said. “ … Nothing is off the table at this point. But we must first review all the facts then we can determine the best way forward.”

Senate Majority Leader Mike Klimesh said the Roberts case “has highlighted the need for policies at the state level to combat illegal immigration.” He said E-Verify “will continue to be a topic of conversation” as lawmakers prepare for the 2026 session.

Rep. Steven Holt, R-Denison, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said lawmakers still are in a fact-finding stage but expect “a wide discussion on what happened in Des Moines … and what we can do to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Holt noted that E-Verify alone may not have prevented Roberts hiring because the district allegedly ignored other red flags.

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“A thorough vetting process without even E-Verify would have shown the district that he didn’t have the credentials he claimed,” he said.

Still, Holt acknowledged the episode will likely bring E-Verify back to the forefront of legislative discussions.

“I think there will be a lot of discussions about E-Verify, as there have been in the past, but there are some concerns about it, as I just mentioned, related to how accurate it is and how much it can be depended on,” he said.

On the 2024 Senate-passed E-Verify bill, Holt told reporters at the time that revoking a business license after a second violation “didn’t seem like a reasonable approach.” He and other House members also worried that E-Verify “puts an additional burden on business” and “doesn’t necessarily do what people believe it does in verifying a worker’s legitimate right to be employed.”

Democrats, business groups raise reliability concerns

Senate Democratic Leader Janice Weiner of Iowa City said E-Verify “has long-standing reliability issues,” pointing to a case in Maine where the Department of Homeland Security called a police department’s reliance on the system “reckless.”

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“Elected officials and employers alike have justifiable concerns with the program’s impact on the workforce,” Weiner said. “Just this year, President (Donald) Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security called reliance on the program ‘reckless.’

“That said, I believe it’s likely that we could see E-Verify legislation again in 2026.”

House Minority Leader Brian Meyer, D-Des Moines, said any new mandate should apply uniformly.

“It would be unfair to single out public schools or city governments while giving large corporations and private entities a pass,” Meyer said. “Any credible workforce verification policy must provide a level playing field to all Iowa employers.

“Republican leaders have yet to propose a credible, comprehensive plan to require Iowa employers to use E-Verify. I look forward to a constructive conversation with Iowa House Republicans about this important matter.”

The Iowa Chamber Alliance and other business groups have previously opposed mandatory E-Verify, arguing it adds costs and legal risks for employers already struggling to fill jobs.

How E-Verify and SAVE work

E-Verify electronically compares information from Form I-9 to federal databases to confirm work eligibility, typically providing a response within seconds. SAVE — the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements — provides immigration and citizenship information for determining eligibility for government benefits and licenses. Both systems are free for the state to use.

Federal contractors and universities conducting federally funded research already must use E-Verify as a condition of their contracts. SAVE is used by some agencies to confirm eligibility for health care, social security, education grants, driver’s licenses and other benefits.

While both E-Verify and Form I-9 are tools used to confirm a worker’s eligibility to work in the United States, they serve different purposes and carry different requirements. All employers must complete a Form I-9 for each new hire to verify identity and work authorization using documents provided by the employee. E-Verify, by contrast, is an optional web-based system for most employers that electronically cross-checks the information from Form I-9 with federal databases at the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.

Form I-9 does not require a Social Security number or a photo ID, and it must be used to reverify expired work authorization documents. E-Verify, on the other hand, requires a Social Security number and a photo on identity documents but may not be used to reverify expired authorizations.

E-Verify use in Iowa

Federal data reviewed by The Gazette shows that more than 150 Iowa educational, local government and state entities are registered as enrolled in the E-Verify system. Though, that does not mean they all currently use the system.

As of June 30, Iowa had 6,145 employers enrolled in E-Verify, according to DHS data. Those employers operated a total of 18,390 hiring sites statewide and submitted 117,402 employment verification cases during fiscal 2025. Over the past 12 months, 2,215 Iowa employers actively used the system, reflecting modest but steady participation in the federal employment-eligibility verification program.

Most of Iowa’s more than 300 school districts, though, do not use E-Verify, relying solely on the federally required Form I-9 employment eligibility verification.

The Iowa Association of School Boards said it does not track or collect information on which districts participate.

“We encourage local boards to follow the law and their district policies when hiring, including all applicable federal and state employment verification requirements,” said Jen Woodley, IASB associate executive director of communications and events.

IASB has not issued specific guidance regarding E-Verify, as compliance with employment verification laws is handled at the district level.

“As always, our role is to support and advise boards in understanding their governance responsibilities and ensuring their policies align with legal requirements,” Woodley said.

Reliability and privacy debates

Critics, including the ACLU of Iowa, warn expanding E-Verify statewide could create new problems.

“E-Verify has structural weaknesses that make it unreliable — and it’s literally offline during the current government shutdown,” said Peter McRoberts, policy director for the ACLU of Iowa. “If it were mandatory today, employers wouldn’t be able to hire anyone new because the system itself is down.”

He also cited data-privacy risks and noted that E-Verify's failure rate disproportionately affects lawful immigrants, and that the system's effectiveness is limited by the quality of documentation.

The system. McRoberts said, is only as strong as the documents provided. If someone submits valid-looking but fraudulent documents, E-Verify may not detect the fraud, as there is no identity check beyond the documents. Employers also face significant burdens in using E-Verify, and the system does not necessarily provide more reliable results than thorough background checks. he said.

The ACLU of Iowa recommends against adopting E-Verify as a solution, arguing that it magnifies the flaws of the current system without providing adequate remedies, and that alternative solutions should be sought.

He emphasized the need for comprehensive immigration reform and cautioned against creating another federal database.

According to the latest performance data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, E-Verify processed about 43 million verification cases during fiscal 2024. Of those cases, 98.4 percent were automatically confirmed as work-authorized within 24 hours, while roughly 1.6 percent were determined not to be authorized. The remaining cases required follow-up to resolve information mismatches or other issues.

Of the roughly 64,000 cases that received initial mismatches, 0.15 percent were later confirmed as work authorized after taking action to resolve the mismatch; 1.43 percent were not found to be authorized to work in the United States.

The federal data show that most E-Verify checks are completed quickly and without additional steps, though a small share of cases still require manual review or coordination between employers, workers and federal agencies to confirm eligibility.

Critics, though, point to that residual rate of discrepancies as key to discussions about the program’s accuracy, fairness and broader role in immigration and employment policy.

“People think a 2 percent error rate sounds small,” McRoberts said, “but that’s a lot of lives disrupted.”

A recent case in Maine has intensified concerns. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called a local police department’s reliance on E-Verify “reckless” after it hired a reserve officer later found to be in the country unlawfully. The officer had cleared E-Verify but was later arrested by immigration authorities. DHS said the department violated federal law by using E-Verify as a substitute for checking documentation authenticity — a case critics say highlights the system’s “garbage in, garbage out” problem that some Iowa lawmakers and civil-rights advocates have cited — if false or incomplete data is entered, the system may still return a “work authorized” result.

Employers who rely solely on E-Verify risk missing red flags, while those who dig deeper could face accusations of discrimination.

“If there’s a problem to fix, then show us those solutions,” McRoberts said. “But don’t take the easy way out by using a flawed system and then call it a day.”

How does Cedar Rapids school district use E-Verify?

Darius Ballard, chief of human resources for the Cedar Rapids district, said they submit "hundreds" of employee records to E-Verify every year. For example, during the 2023-24 school year, 670 people were hired. Since July 1, the district already has hired 326 people, he said.

Darius said the district has to make sure every one of them is eligible to work in the U.S.

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"You don't want to run the risk of not doing your due diligence," Ballard said.

Tammy Wawro, retention and recruitment strategist for Cedar Rapids school, said they've been using E-Verify since 2012 because it's recommended by the federal government.

Michelle Koelling, who has worked in the Cedar Rapids district's human resources department for almost 20 years, said she has never seen a final nonconfirmation from E-Verify, which is when an employee's information does not match government records.

The district has had to "separate" from employees who "refused to give us the required documentation" needed to verify employment eligibility, Koelling said.

Historically, E-Verify has notified employers if an employee's status has changed. That changed this past June. Now, the Cedar Rapids district — and all E-Verify users — have to routinely check the report and ensure none of their employees status has been revoked. If it has been revoked, employers must re-verify their employment authorization.

The Cedar Rapids district checks these reports every other Wednesday, Wawro said.

In addition to E-Verify, background checks are completed on all employees in the Cedar Rapids district in compliance with Iowa Code.

The Cedar Rapids district works with a third party — Inquire Hire, an employment agency in Davenport — to conduct background checks for nonteaching employees, Wawro said.

Other districts such as the College Community School District in Cedar Rapids does not use E-Verify. The College Community Schools background check process includes the following searches:

All searches are based on the new employees verified addresses from the previous seven years, date of birth, any known aliases, Social Security number verification and national terrorist list, said Steve Doser, spokesperson for the College Community district.

In addition, all employees' social security numbers are verified on a yearly basis as a part of the W2 preparation process for taxes, Doser said.

What comes next

The governor’s office said implementation details will be finalized in coordination with federal officials in the coming weeks.

At the same time, the Iowa House Government Oversight Committee’s investigation into Roberts’ hiring is ongoing.

In the meantime, both the Iowa Department of Education and the Des Moines School Board are reviewing procedures, and state leaders are bracing for another round of debate over how far Iowa should go in mandating E-Verify.

Whether that results in new legislation may depend on how much the Des Moines case is seen as a failure of verification — or of judgment.

“If you know when you’re about to hire somebody that there’s an integrity issue — that they told you something that wasn’t true — why did you still hire him?” Holt said. “That’s the question we’ve got to answer before we start writing new laws.”

Gazette reporter Grace King contributed to this report.

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com