The arrest of Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Ian Roberts last week has ignited a firestorm in Iowa’s capital, as federal officials allege the longtime educator was living and working in the country illegally, despite holding one of the state’s most prominent and well-compensated public sector jobs.
Roberts, 54, was detained Friday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after fleeing a traffic stop and abandoning his district-issued vehicle near a wooded area. Authorities say they found him carrying a loaded handgun, a hunting knife, and $3,000 in cash. According to the Department of Homeland Security, Roberts is a native of Guyana who overstayed a student visa and was ordered deported by an immigration judge in May of last year.
“This should be a wake-up call for our communities,” said ICE St. Paul Field Office Director Sam Olson. “How this illegal alien was hired without work authorization, a final order of removal, and a prior weapons charge is beyond comprehension and should alarm the parents of that school district.”
Revoked license, unpaid leave
Des Moines school officials placed Roberts on paid administrative leave during an emergency meeting Saturday, one day after his arrest. At the time, Roberts was operating under a new contract effective July 1, 2025, which provides an annual salary of $286,000 and requires him to maintain a valid state-issued education license through June 30, 2028.
That requirement was no longer met on Monday, when the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners revoked Roberts’s license, citing his lack of legal presence in the United States. The board had originally issued Roberts a license on July 11, 2023, after he passed a background check and attested, under penalty of perjury, that he was a U.S. citizen.
Following the revocation, the Des Moines school board convened another special meeting Monday afternoon to move Roberts from paid to unpaid leave, and to begin weighing his removal formally, according to a local CBS affiliate.
$403,000 in settlements at prior Pennsylvania district
Before his time in Iowa, Roberts served as superintendent of Millcreek Township School District in Pennsylvania, where his tenure was marred by a series of costly legal settlements tied to personnel decisions under his leadership.
In July 2023, just days before Roberts left the district for Des Moines, the Millcreek school board quietly approved a $250,000 settlement with its former head of human resources, according to the Erie Times-News. The agreement, which was designed to remain confidential, resolved claims made by the HR chief who had resigned the previous September.
Less than a year later, in April last year, the district paid $87,500 to settle gender discrimination claims brought by a former administrator who alleged she was demoted and passed over for two principal roles during a staff restructuring directed by Roberts.
Then, in May, the district agreed to a $66,000 payout to resolve a federal lawsuit from a male administrator who claimed Roberts unfairly selected female candidates for promotion over him. That case marked the third discrimination settlement linked to Roberts’s tenure.
In total, Millcreek Township School District paid out more than $403,000 to resolve complaints directly tied to administrative decisions made while Roberts was superintendent.
The I-9 blind spot
Des Moines officials now face scrutiny over their missed warning signs in Roberts’s employment eligibility. The district says Roberts submitted an I-9 form in 2023 stating that he was a U.S. citizen, a claim made under penalty of perjury.
Art Arthur, a former immigration judge and fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, said that employers’ reliance solely on documentation is a major vulnerability.
“It’s not that difficult to get a fake Social Security card,” he said. “They’re probably the most insecure, significant document I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Arthur said if the school district’s hiring authorities “didn’t go through E-Verify,” they likely allowed Roberts to go on undetected. “He showed a driver’s license and a Social Security card, which are appropriate for the I-9 process, and that’s it,” he said. “They would have filled out the form, stuck it in a drawer, and nobody would have thought about it.”
A life in academia as a shield from accountability?
Roberts entered the United States in 1999 on a student visa, ICE confirmed. Born in Guyana, he later earned degrees from Coppin State University and Georgetown University, according to his public resume, which notes his stint in athletics. Roberts even became Coppin State’s first Olympic athlete after competing as a mid-distance runner in the 2000 Sydney Games.
Arthur said Roberts’s pathway illustrates how U.S. immigration rules allow foreign nationals to remain here for decades if they move between academic programs and visas.
“If you are an alien, and you come in on a student visa, you can basically just cobble together an entire life in the United States by going from school to school to school,” Arthur said.
What circumstances led to Roberts receiving a final deportation order during the Biden administration, however, remain unclear.
Two names, one resume, and a voting record?
Public records show inconsistencies in how Roberts has identified himself over the years. While ICE and multiple news outlets refer to him as “Ian Andre Roberts,” a Coppin State University profile lists him as “Andre Ian Roberts,” and an Olympedia athlete database lists him similarly, noting that “Ian Roberts” is his preferred name in athletic competition.
It is not immediately clear why the discrepancy exists in various publications involving Roberts’s career and legacy, though the order matters. A growing list of online influencers has examined Roberts’s name on state voting records, particularly within the state of Maryland, where he was inducted into the sports hall of fame at Coppin.
After online records emerged claiming that Roberts had been registered to vote in the state since 2017, the Republican Maryland Freedom Caucus issued a press release demanding answers, including how an illegal immigrant could have been registered to vote in the first place.
Have you heard about Ian Andre Roberts, the Des Moines, Iowa, Public Schools Superintendent? Arrested last week for a standing deportation order, it turns out he's actively registered to vote in Maryland, despite being an illegal alien. This isn't just another story; it's a… pic.twitter.com/Z5Ukzy2U4p
— Matt Morgan (@MattMorgan29A) September 29, 2025
“Late last night, Freedom Caucus Chair Matt Morgan learned that lan Andre Roberts held a Maryland driver’s license and subsequently confirmed that he is still actively registered to vote in the state,” the state GOP Freedom Caucus statement added.
The Washington Examiner was unable to verify whether Roberts was ever listed as a registered voter on the Maryland State Board of Elections webpage, and was unable to contact a representative for the Board of Elections.
“Military Officer” claims and gun charges
On Sept. 26, ICE said that Roberts fled following a traffic stop in Des Moines and that he was arrested with the assistance of the Iowa State Patrol. The agency said Roberts had on him a loaded handgun in his district-issued car, a hunting knife, and $3,000 in cash.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was tapped by ICE to investigate how Roberts obtained a handgun.
Roberts’s arrest also resurrected scrutiny of a gun charge in Pennsylvania, where he was cited for leaving a loaded hunting rifle in his vehicle, and to which he pleaded guilty in 2022. ICE has also cited a separate gun charge from 2020, though the details around that incident are not immediately clear.
In response to the gun charge in Pennsylvania, Roberts wrote and published a public letter on Instagram in February 2022 describing himself as a “trained Commissioned Military Officer” with “a wealth of experience in firearms training and safety.” The Washington Examiner was not able to locate any information to support or dispute a military connection to Roberts.
That claim, too, has raised red flags.
“He says, ‘I’m a commissioned military officer,’” Arthur said. “Okay — what military was he in?”
Arthur continued, “He graduated from college in ’98. So how exactly did he get a commission in the Guyanese military?”
What ICE can — and can’t — disclose
Des Moines school officials and Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA) say they were not notified of Roberts’s deportation order before his arrest.
But asked whether the federal government has an obligation to release the immigration judge’s removal order publicly, Arthur said federal law limits what ICE can share. The Washington Examiner has requested the court document but was referred to the agency’s press release about Roberts’s arrest.
“He was ordered removed in abstention,” Arthur explained of the most likely scenario for Roberts’s removal order. “The only thing [the removal order] is going to show you is that he was removed to Guyana in absentia. But generally they don’t release either notices to appear or removal orders.”
From leadership to liability
The district has since announced that Matthew Smith, an administrator with DMPS since 2013 and former interim superintendent, would once again serve in that capacity.
Jackie Norris, chair of the Des Moines Public School Board, has said that any new information and “confirmed facts” will inform their decisions on handling the case, while suggesting that Roberts has been a “well-respected leader” in the community.
IOWA SUPERINTENDENT ARRESTED BY ICE, SCHOOL DISTRICT SAYS
“Two things can be true at the same time — Dr. Roberts was an effective and well-respected leader, and there are serious questions related to his citizenship and ability to legally perform his duties as superintendent,” Norris said Monday.
The episode involving Roberts has upended not just school operations but public confidence in the hiring process. His rise to prominence in academia, followed by a dramatic federal takedown, has underscored deeper weaknesses in how public institutions verify immigration status, work eligibility, and legal qualifications for leadership roles.
