The superintendent of the public school system in Des Moines, Iowa, was detained Friday by federal immigration authorities, who said he had been living and working in the United States illegally.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said that the superintendent, Ian Roberts, who was born in Guyana, entered the United States in 1999 on a student visa and had received a deportation order from an immigration judge in May 2024. He had no work authorization, and had faced weapon possession charges several years ago, ICE officials said.

The arrest of the superintendent, who had become a well-known figure in Iowa’s capital city since he was hired two years ago, led to an impromptu protest Friday in downtown Des Moines. And with school leaders and reporters unable to reach Roberts in jail, the events left residents and local officials struggling with unanswered questions about ICE’s claims and about the school district’s vetting process.

“This is challenging on many levels, and the reality is that we may not have additional answers right away,” said Matt Smith, an associate superintendent who was tapped to lead the school system temporarily after the superintendent’s detention.

It was uncertain whether Roberts, who was being held at the Pottawattamie County Jail, had retained a lawyer. His wife declined to comment.

ICE Agents Find Roberts at His Car

ICE agents approached Roberts while he was in his vehicle Friday, and he sped off, according to a statement issued by the agency. He was later taken into custody after his vehicle was found abandoned near a wooded area, the statement said. The agency said that he had a loaded handgun, $3,000 in cash and a hunting knife when he was detained.

Roberts has led the school district since July 2023. He previously worked as a teacher and had been a track and field athlete for Guyana’s national team, representing that country in the 2000 Olympics.

Roberts’ career had taken him to schools across the country — in Missouri, Maryland, New York and Washington, D.C., according to his biography. As he moved into leadership roles, he received advanced degrees, spoke at conferences and wrote a book about “radical empathy.”

He spent three years in Pennsylvania leading the Millcreek Township School District, during which court records show that he had entered a guilty plea after being charged with having a loaded firearm inside a vehicle. The record, from 2022, does not include details about the circumstances that led to the charge.

In a social media post that year, Roberts said that a state game warden had issued a citation against him while he was hunting in a wooded area. He said he was a licensed gun owner and had placed the weapon in his vehicle while speaking to the officer in an effort to make the warden feel safe.

Not long after that, he accepted the job at the much larger school system in Des Moines, which has about 30,000 students and nearly 5,000 employees. A sharp dresser who was known to make frequent appearances at school buildings, Roberts quickly built a public profile in Iowa, where, under his leadership, the district advanced racial equity efforts that were criticized by some conservatives. This fall, he was asking voters to approve more funding for the school district.

Arrested a Month Into School Year

His sudden arrest, just a month into the school year, shocked Des Moines parents and officials, who struggled to square ICE’s assertions with the administrator they had come to know. It also left questions about how, if ICE’s claims were proved, someone not authorized to work in the United States had managed to build a national profile and move from school district to school district.

In a statement, Sam Olson, an ICE field office director, described the employment of Roberts as “beyond comprehension,” given a judge’s order for his removal and a lack of work authorization, and as a situation that “should alarm the parents of that school district.”

As word of the detention spread Friday, several hundred protesters gathered outside the Neal Smith Federal Building in Des Moines. At one point, a chant went up: “Free Dr. Roberts!”

On Friday evening, Phil Roeder, a spokesperson for the school district, said that Roberts filled out a federal form to establish work eligibility, known as an I-9, and that he had submitted identification documents to confirm he was authorized to work in the United States. Roeder added that school officials did not know that Roberts was facing a deportation order.

“The district has not been formally notified by ICE about this matter, nor have we been able to talk with Dr. Roberts since his detention,” Roeder said.

Roeder said an outside firm, Baker-Eubanks, had conducted a “comprehensive background check” on Roberts when he was being considered for the job. Roeder said the school board learned about the Pennsylvania gun case when Roberts was being considered for the job in Iowa and did not find it disqualifying.

Kim Cockerham, the president and CEO of Baker-Eubanks, said in an email that “we were hired to investigate his criminal background, but we were not hired for any I-9 or work eligibility matters.” She said “we disclosed criminal records, which are also publicly available.”

Efforts to reach a consulting firm that assisted the school district with the search for a superintendent were not immediately successful.

Shawn Rollman, 27, a parent of a first grader in Des Moines, said Roberts had been an excellent leader who championed his students. Learning that he was in the country illegally would not change how highly she thinks of him, Rollman said.

“So many of the students in the district are immigrants,” she said, “and so I would have nothing bad to say.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Ernesto Londoño, Ann Hinga Klein and Mitch Smith/Kathryn Gamble
c. 2025 The New York Times Company