Thread: Des Moines Public Schools superintendent detained by ICE

Des Moines Public Schools superintendent detained by ICE

ICE said he was in the country illegally and had a final order of removal.

By Armando Garcia and James Hill
September 26, 2025, 5:05 PM
Videos can be found at the page link

ICE officer 'relieved of current duties' after violent confrontation caught on cameraAn ICE agent seen on video pushing a woman to the ground on Thursday has been relieved of duties as DHS investigates the incident, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told ABC News.

The superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Friday, according to the school district.
ICE said Ian Roberts was in the country illegally from Guyana and was working as a superintendent despite having "a final order of removal and no work authorization."



Ian Roberts in a photo dated, Feb. 26, 2025, released by ICE.

When officers conducting a "targeted enforcement operation" tried to approach Roberts in his car on Friday, the superintendent sped away, and the officers later found his car abandoned, ICE said.
Police helped find Roberts, and when he was taken into custody, the superintendent was in possession of a loaded handgun, a fixed-blade hunting knife and $3,000 in cash, ICE said.



A photo of what ICE reported as a loaded handgun found in Ian Robert's vehicle, Sept. 26, 2025.

Roberts entered the U.S. on a student visa in 1999 and a judge gave him a "final order of removal" in May 2024, ICE said in a statement.

Roberts has weapon possession charges from February 2020, the agency said.



A photo released by ICE of Ian Roberts dated February 2020.

MORE: ICE officer 'relieved of current duties' after violent confrontation caught on camera

School district officials said in a statement they didn't have information on "next potential steps" for Roberts.

Roberts joined the Des Moines district in July 2023 and "held educational leadership positions in districts across the U.S. for 20 years," school board chair Jackie Norris said at a news conference Friday.
"There is new information that has been made public that we did not know, and have not been able to verify as to whether that information is accurate," she said.
"There is much we do not know," she said. "However, what we do know is that Dr. Roberts has been an integral part of our school community since he joined over two years ago. During his time with our district, he has shown up in ways big and small, and has advocated for students and staff and begun introducing concepts that will help us reimagine education for future generations of Des Moines students."



Des Moines School District superintendent Dr. Ian Roberts waves to the crowd as passing through Grand Avenue during the Iowa State Fair Parade, Aug.t 9, 2023, in Des Moines, Iowa.
Nirmalendu Majumdar/The Des Moines Register/USA TODAY NETWORK

Roberts got his start as a special education teacher and completed his first doctorate on the importance of including special education students in the classroom, according to Nicole Price, who has written several books with Roberts.
"You can hardly go out with him in any capacity where people are not excited to see him and talk to him," Price told ABC News. "Children light up when they see him, and I believe that is because of how much he cares."
Price said she's known Roberts in a professional capacity for 11 years and does not know anything about his immigration status.
Price said Roberts also works as a coach at her leadership development business.
"I just believe that he's an exceptional coach, and so that's why I've always used him in a consulting capacity," she said.

Des Moines Public Schools superintendent detained by ICE - ABC News

An Illegal Alien Public School Super-Intendant located in Des Moines Iowa was just detained by I.C.E.

Des Moines School District superintendent Dr. Ian Roberts from Ghana was arrested with a Gun, a Knife and 3,000.00 cash was Living the Dream as a Super Intendent of the Public School System in Des Moines (Maybe he hit the Powerball and needed some walk'n money) or stuck-up Grandma at the grocery store. BINGO every Saturday Night Veterans at the V.F.W. had no comment

Qualified Unemployed Americans had No Comment as they beg for Food Stamps from the Government

If you think he is the only one you are sadly mistaken

and yes, right now I am P.O. Mocking our Mentally Retarded Government Officials at the Local, State and Federal Government Level. Who Ever Hired this Lee Harvy Oswald want-a-be better be locked the Heck Behind Bars for Fraud

Democrats Rage, Leftist NGO Mobilizes After ICE Arrest Of Iowa's Top School Superintendent

Sunday, Sep 28, 2025 - 03:45 PM

Democrats expressed "national outrage" after the ICE arrest of Ian Roberts, an illegal alien from Guyana who somehow became the Superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools, the largest school district in Iowa. Roberts competed as an Olympic athlete and distance runner for Guyana 25 years ago, but this apparently didn't help him escape immigration enforcement and his active warrants.



At the time of his arrest, Roberts was working as the Superintendent despite being an illegal alien with a final order of removal and no work authorization. He was caught with a firearm in his possession (which is illegal to carry for a non-citizen), as well as a hunting knife and $3000 cash. Roberts had previous warrants for weapons possession charges in February of 2020.



Protest in Des Moines after school superintendent in ICE custody | NewsNation Now


Democrats claim that these ICE arrests and Trump's deportation policies are directly to blame for the now numerous shootings committed by leftist activists. In other words, conservatives who are enforcing constitutional immigration laws are to blame when leftists try to kill them.
During a targeted enforcement operation on Sept. 26, 2025, officers approached Roberts in his vehicle after identifying himself, but he sped away. Officers later discovered his vehicle abandoned near a wooded area. State Patrol assisted in locating the subject and he was taken into ICE custody.
"This suspect was arrested in possession of a loaded weapon in a vehicle provided by Des Moines Public Schools after fleeing federal law enforcement," said ICE ERO St. Paul Field Office Director Sam Olson. "This should be a wake-up call for our communities to the great work that our officers are doing every day to remove public safety threats. 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."
The arrest spurred a protest outside the federal courthouse in Des Moines.



In response to the arrest, protesters mobilized under what appears to be the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a radical leftist group linked to the Los Angeles riots and connected to Neville Roy Singham, a U.S. billionaire with reported ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and to extremist organizations that fuel division and civil chaos nationwide.




Wall Street Apes
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Is this not insane, look at the size of this crowd These people are protesting demanding Ian Roberts, the illegal superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools who fled ICE be released He’s an illegal making $300,000+ per year paid for by taxpayers This protest has to be paid




Last edited1:52 PM · Sep 27, 2025

69.2K<--------- Video


Video and images show professionally produced "Free Roberts" signs with PSL symbols, indicating the protest was likely artificial rather than organic. The activity aligns with the broader protest-industrial complex and appears linked to dark-money NGO networks backed by Singham.




Laura Powell
@LauraPowellEsq
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Surprise, surprise. The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL)—a Communist group—is showing up at the protests in Des Moines in support of conman and alleged illegal alien Ian Roberts. Preprinted signs are always proof you’re not looking at an organic protest.

1:32 AM · Sep 28, 2025

Civil terrorism expert Jason Curtis Anderson of One City Rising comments on the story and provides readers with additional context about PSL's protest involvement:

The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) is a core component of the Neville Roy Singham operation. Their #1 goal is to exploit the fault lines in our society, destabilizing the existing system, and induce the American population into supporting communism.
The PSL is their political party, which runs people for office, and last year, ran Claudia De La Cruz for President, getting her on the ballot in 19 states. The PSL played a lead role in the nationwide campus encampments, but the wider Singham network also has their own network of educators. They are capturing the universities from the top down and bottom up.
The PSL protesting on behalf of armed conman (and alleged illegal alien) Ian Roberts serves all of their agendas:

• It shows solidarity with people of color
• It shows solidarity with illegal immigrants
• It attacks ICE (The most violent anti-ICE riots were in California and Texas, both led by the PSL)
• It gives them an excuse to create more social division and bloviate about how this is a fascist country

Nobody in America should want a foreign national who was arrested with a loaded gun and $3k in cash around their kids. But for the PSL and the wider Singham network, they don't want America to abide by laws, especially as it pertains to immigration. This event marked a new enforcement in this sector. A chess piece was taken off of the board, and they are angry about it. Capturing education is a huge part of Singham's strategy, and while Ian Roberts was not 'in network' just yet, the Singham network has already made significant progress on developing a "network of educators" to help them carry out their goals.

The Iowa Board of Educational Examiners issued Roberts a license to serve as Superintendent in the state in July 2023, according to Norris.


"There is new information that has been made public that we did not know, and we have not been able to verify," Norris said.
Roberts entered the US on a student visa in 1999, on which he overstayed. He had no work order and was given a final order of removal by an immigration judge in May 2024 (under Joe Biden), according to the DHS statement. Des Moines public school officials claim they were not aware of the order of removal. The leftist sentiments and calls for "radical empathy" from those same officials suggest, however, that they were likely aware of his immigration status and hired him anyway.
Not surprising...

I found this bio on the British Amazon for Dr Ian Roberts, from around 2011.

What it shows is that Roberts' career was that of an itinerant charter school principal in rough urban school districts. Very few of these schools got "turned around." Many have since closed. pic.twitter.com/RjmFsIYa5c
— CowLivesMatter (@ProtesterLone) September 27, 2025

The arrest highlights the dark cloud of far-left ideology plaguing the U.S. school system and the unfortunate reality that many district officials enable the spread of woke propaganda in American education. It also underscores the Democrats’ doubling down on ignorance, showing more sympathy for criminals than for innocent citizens. Moreover, the arrest and subsequent protest mobilization reveal how Democrats and their radical leftist dark-money NGO networks mobilize force whenever their power is threatened, especially when one of their own is removed from a position of authority within Des Moines public schools. Remember: indoctrination and nation-killing policies often begin in classrooms - and Democrats used an illegal alien to spread toxic woke.
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Democrats Rage, Leftist NGO Mobilizes After ICE Arrest Of Iowa's Top School Superintendent | ZeroHedge

The Telegraph

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Illegal migrant with criminal history found to be running schools

Story by Cameron Henderson
• 4h • 4 min read




Ian Roberts arrived in the US from South America in 1994 on a visitors’ visa - Lily Smith/The Register/USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

An illegal migrant with a criminal history who was in charge of overseeing the running of a number of schools in Iowa is now facing deportation.
Ian Roberts, the superintendent of the Des Moines School Board, was arrested by ICE agents after he was found to be an undocumented migrant with a final order for deportation.

The arrest of the popular superintendent sparked a backlash in the state leading his supporters to protest for his release.
In addition to him being in the US illegally, inconsistencies in his CV and previous run-ins with the law, which allegedly involved Mr Roberts carrying a gun through an airport, have since emerged.
Mr Roberts was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers on Sept 26 after he was found hiding, dressed in a suit, near a trailer park.
Investigators said he had fled in a Jeep owned by the school district, where a loaded handgun, a hunting knife and $3,000 in cash were later recovered.

A loaded handgun was allegedly found in the Jeep that Ian Roberts used to flee agents - ICE

When he was selected to run the public school district in 2023, he was viewed as the sort of inspiring leader who could turn around the district after the Covid-19 pandemic.
The former Olympic athlete had a compelling life story, having immigrated from Guyana, allegedly earned degrees from impressive universities and spent most of his career in urban school systems building a reputation for his hands-on approach.

“I believe deeply in the promise of public education being the most important opportunity gap closer for youth, particularly with a focus on diverse populations,” Mr Roberts wrote in his cover letter, according to The New York Times.
Despite a past brush with the law and an inconsistency about where he obtained his doctorate, the school board moved ahead with hiring him after two outside vetting companies confirmed he was a US citizen.
For two years, Mr Roberts oversaw the education of 30,000 children in the public system and ushered in improvements in academic standards.
Even after a Texas judge ordered him to be deported last year, Mr Roberts allegedly continued to drop into classrooms and encouraged voters to approve more funds for the district.



Mr Roberts at North High School, in Des Moines. He oversaw the education of 30,000 children in the public system - Lily Smith/The Register / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Mr Roberts had arrived in the US from South America in his 20s and attended Coppin State University in Baltimore, where he competed in the athletics team.
He went on to represent Guyana, running in the 800m at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
According to ICE, Mr Roberts entered the US on a visitors’ visa in 1994 when he was in his twenties and had arrests in New York in 1996 for drug charges and in 1998 on a charge of using an unauthorised vehicle, which was later dismissed.

After receiving a five-year student visa in 1999, the year after obtaining a bachelor’s degree from Coppin State, he undertook a master’s in education at St John’s University in New York.
In 2001, he unsuccessfully applied to become a permanent US resident and went on to work as a teacher in Baltimore for five years before becoming a principal.
A former public school official who once interviewed Mr Roberts praised his “incredible energy” and the “tremendous rapport” he had with kids, according to The New York Times.
Throughout the subsequent years, the teacher’s immigration status remained unclear, though ICE indicated to the newspaper that he had legal status in the country from 2018 to 2020.

Mr Roberts unsuccessfully applied to become a permanent US resident in 2001 - ICE

During this time, he led a struggling high school in Washington, DC and a district office in St Louis, Missouri, specialising in turning around underperforming urban public schools.
In 2020, he was hired as a superintendent at a school district in Pennsylvania, telling the school system he was an American citizen when he applied, district leaders said.

Months later, his authorisation to work in the country is alleged to have expired.
Following his arrest, Mr Roberts was first placed on paid leave, then unpaid leave before the school board accepted his resignation.
Further holes have since emerged in the educator’s CV. Mr Roberts claimed on his application in Iowa and Pennsylvania that he had a doctorate from Morgan State University. However, university officials said he never received his degree.
An article on the Des Moines Public Schools site said that Mr Roberts received a Master’s degree from MIT, but the university said it had no record of him attending.
While Des Moines School Board officials were aware of a citation against Mr Roberts for having a loaded gun in a vehicle in Pennsylvania, they were unaware of a separate alleged arrest in 2020 for carrying a gun through an airport.
In the now-sealed case in New York, Mr Roberts was allegedly arrested for carrying a gun in his bag at LaGuardia Airport, an official told The New York Times. It is not clear if he was charged.



People protest against Mr Roberts’s arrest in Iowa on Sept 26 - Bryon Houlgrave/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said he “should have never been able to work around children”.
Jackie Norris, the chairwoman of the Des Moines School Board, said the district had followed the law and relied on an outside firm, JG Consulting, to assess Mr Roberts’s credentials.

On Friday, the school district sued JG consulting, accusing it of failing to vet Mr Roberts properly. A lawyer for the consulting firm defended its work and said that the teacher “provided the documents necessary to show that he was eligible for the position”.
Mr Roberts’s lawyer said that the Department of Homeland Security was attempting to “demonise” his client.
“It is a disturbing pattern that will fail,” Mr Parrish told The New York Times, adding that “the public will see that Dr. Roberts is a good man whose main interest was inspiring and educating young people”.
The Department of Homeland Security, Des Moines School Board, JG Consulting and representatives for Mr Roberts were approached for comment.

Illegal migrant with criminal history found to be running schools

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"Support the SAVE America Act to remove noncitizens from US elections, require proof of citizenship, and photo ID to vote, which are steps supported by 80% of American citizens!"

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Noncitizens are voting in large numbers, and here is plenty of evidence for you to source and share online to prove it (VIEW AND SHARE HERE)

And here is Democrat illegal alien voting poster child Ian Roberts, who was serving in a 350k per year government job in the Iowa schools (VIEW & SHARE)

You can win any argument with a liberal about noncitizen voters with these resources we provide at the tip of your fingers.

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Call all Democrats, but begin with this group that is up for reelection in 2026, who are most likely to be persuaded to vote with Republicans if you can drive home the fact that 80% of Americans favor photo ID and being a US citizen to vote as a 2026 election issue in their races!

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