Former Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Ian Roberts is trying to delay his deportation to his native Guyana.
His lawyer, Alfredo Parrish, said his law firm filed the request for a stay with the federal immigration court in Omaha, Nebraska, according to the Associated Press. Roberts submitted his resignation to DMPS the same day, avoiding a lengthy legal battle over his termination.
“Dr. Roberts has authorized me to send this letter announcing his immediate resignation from his position as superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools,” a letter from Roberts’s attorneys reads. “Out of concern for his 30,000 students, Dr. Roberts does not want to distract the Board, educators, and staff from focusing on educating DMPS’s students.”
An immigration judge on Tuesday ordered Roberts to leave the country voluntarily or face deportation. However, his lawyers produced a letter from his last immigration attorney, who said his immigration case was closed, setting up a longer legal battle.
School officials announced Roberts’s arrest by ICE on Friday, claiming that they had no idea why he was arrested. An ICE official revealed to Fox News that Roberts was arrested on a deportation order from May 2024. According to the order, Roberts was born in Guyana and came to the United States illegally, contradicting his claim that he was born in New York.
“ICE Des Moines today arrested Ian Andre Roberts, a criminal illegal alien from Guyana, in possession of a loaded handgun, $3,000 in cash, and a fixed blade hunting knife,” an ICE spokesperson said in a Friday statement. “At the time of his arrest, Roberts was working as the Superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools despite being an illegal alien with a final order of removal and no work authorization.”
Roberts had a weapon possession charge from Feb. 5, 2020, according to ICE. Sam Olson, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations St. Paul Field Office director, said the episode should serve as a “wake-up call.”
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“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,” he said.
Despite his previous deportation order, Roberts’s arrest took DMPS by surprise, unaware of the original reason for his arrest.
Kaelen Deese contributed to this report.
