On Friday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced the most jaw-dropping apprehension of an illegal immigrant. ICE arrested Ian Andre Roberts, a native of the small South American nation of Guyana, whose last work authorization expired in 2020. What made this arrest so surprising weren’t the crimes committed by the detainee (although there were a few), but the way that he apparently hid for years in plain sight — even in a position of public leadership and trust.
When ICE arrested Roberts, he was working as the superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools, drawing a base salary of $286,000. The inherent dissonance of that statement has people scratching their heads across the political spectrum.
Yet there seems to be no reason to doubt the facts ICE has marshalled in this case, even if their enforcement record has not been perfect this year. ICE argued that Roberts had an existing weapon possession charge from February 2020, leading to a final order of removal issued by a federal immigration judge in May 2024. Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa), who represents the Des Moines area, tracked down the removal order through a FOIA request, and a redacted version was published by local station KCCI.
After ICE provided the school board with evidence, they voted 6-0 to place Roberts on unpaid leave in a Monday night meeting. The Iowa Board of Educational Examiners had already revoked Roberts’s license on Sunday.
A further reason to trust ICE’s case is the behavior of the defendant himself. When officers approached his vehicle in a targeted immigration enforcement traffic stop, Roberts fled away from the scene and abandoned his car near a wooded area. In his car, ICE found a loaded handgun, a hunting knife, and $3,000 in cash. After losing his professional license and being placed on unpaid leave, Roberts resigned his position as Des Moines Public Schools superintendent.
The first decision (to run) raises suspicion. The second decision (to resign) suggests a finality, that Roberts knows there is no way for him to regain the position. In other words, resignation is not the move of someone tripped up by a simple misunderstanding, which could be straightened out in just a few days.
Despite these facts, some people still contended that Roberts had received unfair treatment. Roberts’s lawyer, Alfredo Parrish, complained that the school board had “thrown away the valuable tool of due process” in placing his client on unpaid leave, although they did give Parrish a chance to respond.
Likewise, former Democratic state Representative Ako Abdul-Samad urged the school district to “place him on paid leave until the facts are in. He argued, “When there’s an officer shooting, that officer is placed on paid leave until all the facts are in, right? We’re asking the same thing.”
These are partisan questions, and not very compelling ones. Roberts did receive due process — last year, in an immigration court. The result of that process was a judge’s final order of removal, and the school board has neither the legal competence nor the legal authority to gainsay that verdict. This removal order, then, becomes the only relevant fact. Those complaining about the swiftness of Roberts’s defenestration from the Des Moines School District simply want to relitigate the judge’s verdict in the court of public opinion, when Roberts’ case was already settled a year ago under the Biden administration.
Still others want to have it both ways. Des Moines School Board Chairwoman Jackie Norris, who is also running as a Democrat for U.S. Senate, proposed that “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.”
This is still a partisan proposal in that it is obviously designed to appeal to a segment of voters. But it is more plausible in that respects the established facts and declines to openly flout federal immigration law.
Yet even this solution raises more (and better) questions. For instance: can a superintendent be trusted if he obtained his position under false pretenses? Does Norris believe that good results (Roberts was “an effective … leader,” she said) excuse lawbreaking? What sort of character example has Roberts set for students in Des Moines public schools?
ICE Enforcement and Removal (ERO) St. Paul Field Office Director Sam Olson had his own question: “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.”
Indeed, the story grows even stranger, because Roberts’s career extends far beyond this one position. After entering the U.S. on a student visa in 1999, Roberts spent more than two decades building a career as an education administrator. During that time, he worked in Maryland, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. He wrote books, spoke at conferences, and engaged in political debates. During that time, he was also issued multiple traffic citations and was charged with at least one gun-related offense. Roberts was not exactly the sort of illegal immigrant who hides off the grid.
It seems that Roberts crept along by claiming to be a U.S. citizen when it was necessary. At the time of his hiring in Des Moines, Roberts filled out paperwork claiming that he was a U.S. citizen, as well as providing a driver’s license and Social Security card. How did he have a Social Security card — not just the number, but the card too?
Roberts also affirmed “under penalty of perjury” that he was a U.S. citizen when registering to vote in Maryland in December 2016, according to USA Today. The state of Maryland had itself created a voter record for Roberts in January 2012 (although there is no record that Roberts ever voted).
One possible solution is that Roberts’s main fault, if viewed charitably, was serial resumé inflation (an increasingly visible problem across academia). Roberts has long claimed to hold a doctoral degree from Morgan State University, but the university said Roberts never obtained a degree from the school. The problem is that falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen is a far more serious offense, with far stiffer penalties; U.S. citizenship is far more important than a degree from this or that school.
Other questions could be asked about Roberts’s record. For example, since his work authorization expired in 2020, but he has still gathered a healthy salary, has he (or how has he) paid his taxes?
However, the question with the broadest application is this: how did Des Moines Public Schools, or any of Roberts’s other previous employers, verify his eligibility to work? Did they simply take his word for it? The U.S. Department of Justice plans to investigate the district’s hiring practices. Whatever shortcomings they find will likely prove instructive to many other businesses (or school districts) also.
AUTHOR
Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.
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