The leader of Iowa’s largest school district was placed on administrative leave by officials on Sept. 27, a day after his arrest by immigration authorities, who said he had entered the United States illegally.
During a three-minute-long special meeting on Sept. 27, the Des Moines school board voted unanimously to place Superintendent Ian Roberts on paid leave and said he was not available to fulfill his responsibilities for the 30,000-student district. The board added that it would reassess his status once it got more information.
School board president Jackie Norris read a statement following the meeting, saying that notice of Roberts’s arrest on Sept. 26 made for a “jarring day” and that the board still needed all the facts.
Immigration agents detained Roberts because he entered the country illegally, lacked work authorization, and had been issued a final removal order in 2024, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Roberts was driving a school-issued vehicle when he was stopped by ICE agents, and the agency said he fled into the woods before he was arrested with assistance from Iowa State Patrol officers.
Roberts is being held in the Woodbury County Jail in Sioux City, located roughly 150 miles from Des Moines in northwest Iowa.
“I want to be clear, no one here was aware of any citizenship or immigration issues that Dr. Roberts may have been facing,” Norris said.
“The accusations ICE had made against Dr. Roberts are very serious, and we are taking them very seriously.”
Roberts is being represented by a Des Moines law firm, Norris said. Attorney Alfredo Parrish confirmed that his firm was representing Roberts but declined to comment further.
The district had ordered a background check on Roberts before he was hired that didn’t flag any issues, and the superintendent signed a form attesting that he was a U.S. citizen, Norris added.
The school board president said the company that assisted in the search for a superintendent in 2023 had also hired a separate firm to facilitate “comprehensive criminal, credit, and background checks” on Roberts that didn’t unveil any citizenship issues.
The Iowa Department of Education released a statement on Sept. 27 noting that Roberts had affirmed he was a U.S. citizen when he applied for his administrator license. The Iowa Board of Educational Examiners ordered a criminal history probe with both state and federal authorities before granting the license, the department said.
The department added that it is reviewing the Des Moines district’s hiring processes that assess whether applicants are authorized to work in the United States.
Previously, Roberts said he was born to immigrant parents from Guyana and had spent years of his childhood living in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
The superintendent competed in the 2000 Olympics for Guyana in track and field. Roberts entered the United States on a student visa the prior year, ICE said.
On Sept. 27, a former senior Guyanese police official said Roberts likely would have climbed up the ranks of the South American nation’s police force had he not left for the United States decades ago.
Roberts entered the police force after he graduated from Guyana’s standard military officers’ course, according to Paul Slowe, retired assistant Guyana Police Force commissioner.
“He served for a few years and then left. He was not dismissed or dishonorably discharged at all; he just moved on,” Slowe told The Associated Press. “He was a good, promising, and disciplined man.”
