The story out of Des Moines is staggering — and it raises every alarm about how deep the cracks in America’s immigration and hiring systems really run.
On Friday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced the arrest of Ian Andre Roberts, the now-former superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools. Roberts, a native of Guyana, had been living in the United States illegally since overstaying his student visa issued in 1999.
Worse, a deportation order had already been issued against him in May 2024, yet somehow he not only stayed in the country but also rose to one of the most powerful educational posts in Iowa.
When ICE officers closed in, Roberts bolted. His vehicle was later found abandoned in the woods, but law enforcement eventually tracked him down. What they found paints an even darker picture: a loaded handgun, $3,000 in cash, and a fixed-blade hunting knife in his possession. For someone already carrying a weapons charge from 2020, this was no accident. Federal investigators are now probing how Roberts — an illegal immigrant barred from gun ownership — was able to obtain the firearm.
NEW: ICE just arrested the superintendent of Des Moines public schools, who turns out is a criminal illegal immigrant from Guyana with a deportation order.
Ian Andre Roberts was found with a loaded handgun, $3,000 in cash and a fixed blade hunting knife after trying to run from… pic.twitter.com/typVZ7x4jU
— Jennie Taer ️ (@JennieSTaer) September 26, 2025
Then there’s his immigration paperwork. Roberts reportedly tried to apply for status years ago, listing six children with five different women — three of them born within a single year. One child was born in Guyana; the other five in the U.S. The chaotic details of his personal life, combined with his legal record, didn’t just lead to a denied application; they should have kept him far from any position of public trust.
And yet, here he was — the superintendent of Iowa’s largest school district.
That revelation left ICE’s St. Paul Field Office Director Sam Olson openly questioning how this could have happened. “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,” Olson said.
The Iowa Board of Educational Examiners has since revoked Roberts’s superintendent license, while the school district placed him on administrative leave. Officials now say Roberts cleared a third-party background check and even filled out an I-9 employment eligibility form. But that raises even more disturbing questions: How rigorous are these checks, and how many others have slipped through?
