CHIKUN/KAJURU REP, HON. FIDELIX BAGUDU, ANNOUNCES NEW APPOINTMENTS TO STRENGTHEN INCLUSIVE GOVERNANCE. (PHOTO).
The leader of Iowa’s largest school district was placed on administrative leave Saturday, a day after federal immigration agents arrested him for being in the country illegally. The Des Moines school board voted unanimously during a brief special meeting to put Superintendent Ian Roberts on paid leave, citing his unavailability to perform duties for the district’s 30,000 students. Officials said they will reevaluate his status once more information becomes available.
School board president Jackie Norris called the news of Roberts’ arrest “jarring” and emphasized that board members did not yet have all the facts. Federal authorities said Roberts was detained for being in the country without authorization to work and for being subject to a final removal order issued in 2024. Agents stopped him while he was driving a school vehicle, and he reportedly fled into a wooded area before being apprehended with assistance from state patrol officers. He was held in a jail in northwest Iowa, roughly 150 miles from Des Moines.
Norris stated that the district had conducted background checks prior to hiring Roberts that did not indicate any citizenship concerns, and that Roberts had signed forms affirming he was a U.S. citizen. The Iowa Department of Education also confirmed that Roberts indicated he was a U.S. citizen when applying for an administrator license, and that state and federal criminal history checks had been conducted. Roberts has retained legal counsel, though his lawyer declined to comment.
Roberts, who was born to immigrant parents from Guyana and spent much of his childhood in Brooklyn, New York, competed in track and field for Guyana in the 2000 Olympics. ICE said he originally entered the U.S. on a student visa in 1999. A former senior official in the Guyana Police Force recalled Roberts as a disciplined and promising officer who left the force to pursue opportunities in the United States.
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