In a jaw-dropping turn that should set off alarm bells across school districts, the superintendent of the public schools in Iowa’s capital has been revealed as an undocumented immigrant with an active deportation order — and ICE hauled him in late last week.
Predictably, the usual open-borders crowd and their media allies are clucking about “targeting,” but the facts here are explosive: the man was drawing a generous six-figure base salary and, incredibly, reportedly received a pay raise after that deportation order was filed last year.
Here’s what Fox News’ Bill Melugin has discovered about him so far:
BREAKING: A senior ICE official tells @FoxNews that today, ICE arrested the Superintendent of Des Moines, Iowa Public Schools, Dr. Ian Andre Roberts, who ICE says is an illegal alien from Guyana & and active ICE fugitive with a deportation order since May 2024. Fox is told Dr. Roberts fled from ICE agents in his car once they ID’d themselves as immigration agents, speeding away, then abandoning the car. He was found in a brushy area 200 yards away with the help of an Iowa State Police K9. Per ICE official, agents found a loaded gun, a “fixed blade hunting knife”, and $3,000 cash in Dr. Robert’s vehicle.
Per senior ICE official, Roberts first entered the U.S. in 1999 on a F-1 student visa at St. John’s University was ordered removed from the United States on May 22, 2024, with proceedings being held in absentia. On April 24, 2025, an Immigration Judge in Dallas, TX denied a Motion to Reopen his immigration case.
Fox is told Dr. Roberts also has a weapons arrest in 2020, though the disposition of that charge/case is currently unclear.
There’s more:
NEW: ICE press release & arrest photo below ??
ICE arrests criminal alien serving as Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent; prior weapons charges and in possession of loaded handgun at time of arrest
“ICE Des Moines today arrested Ian Andre Roberts, a criminal illegal…
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) September 26, 2025
Of course, the left is rushing to this illegal migrant’s defense. Here’s one viral example:
This shit is shameful. He was almost certainly brought here as a kid, given his bio. People like this want to be above board, and the immigration system is so broken that they haven’t had that choice. Now they’re being treated like garbage for having done everything else right.
— austerity is theft (@wideofthepost) September 26, 2025
Millions of views and endless outrage for this story — and for what? There is nothing shameful about ICE doing its job. Contrary to the comforting narrative some on the left have pushed, this superintendent was not “probably brought here as a kid.” He first entered the U.S. in 1999 as a college student, then apparently overstayed his visa. That’s not an accident; it’s a choice to remain here illegally for decades.
He didn’t merely sit quietly. He allegedly fled authorities — itself a crime — and investigators found weapons and thousands of dollars in cash stashed in his car. He has a prior weapons arrest from roughly five years ago. A federal judge ordered him removed during the Biden administration, he skipped the hearing, and a later appeal was rejected this year. Those aren’t allegations of a sympathetic immigrant caught up in paperwork — they’re a record of repeated lawbreaking and evasion.
This is what due process looks like: charges, hearings, rulings — all the boxes have been checked. The legal system ran its course; the removal order stands. To call this an “abuse” or to cast the man as a victim is to reject the rule of law itself. If you’re defending someone who knowingly stayed here illegally for years, fled authorities, and had weapons and cash hidden in his car, you aren’t defending mercy — you’re defending lawlessness.
Let’s stop pretending outrage is the same thing as justice. The arrest was warranted, overdue, and necessary. Anyone outraged by that outcome is revealing where they stand: not for due process, not for the rule of law, but for excuses.
