By Stabroek News,Us Immigration
Copyright stabroeknews
The Des Moines Public School Board in Iowa voted on Saturday to place its Superintendent, Guyanese Ian Roberts, on paid administrative leave from his $286,716-a-year contract. The special board meeting was called to decide on what action to take in the wake of Roberts’s arrest on Friday morning by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Roberts has retained the Parrish-Cridoneer law firm for legal representation.
According to a statement from ICE, Roberts was a “criminal illegal alien” from Guyana who was in the country without authorization and subject to a final order of removal. It said that he entered the US in 1999 on a student visa, and that an immigration judge issued a final order of removal in May 2024.
ICE’s statement alleged that Roberts was in possession of a “loaded handgun, [US]$3,000 in cash and a fixed blade hunting knife” at the time of his arrest. The agency also stated that Roberts had “existing weapon possession charges from February 5, 2020,” and that the investigation into how he acquired the handgun was being turned over to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
Meanwhile, Des Moines School Board Chair Jackie Norris, in a video statement posted on X expressed shock and sought to address questions about the district’s hiring process.
“I want to be clear, no one here was aware of any citizenship or immigration issues that Dr Roberts may have been facing,” Norris stated.
Norris defended the district’s hiring practices, stating that Roberts completed the I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification Form and “affirmed that he was a citizen who was eligible to work in the school district.” She detailed that an outside search firm, JG Consulting, hired a third party, Baker Eubanks, to conduct a comprehensive criminal, credit, and background check, which “found nothing related to citizenship or immigration matters.” She also noted that the Iowa Department of Education issued Roberts a superintendent license in 2023 after an FBI background check, an application on which he stated he was a US citizen.
Norris ended her statement with a plea for restraint, urging the community to “cool down the rhetoric” and stop spreading “misinformation,” emphasizing the difficulty of the situation for children who are “online 24/7.”
According to the Des Moines School Board website, Roberts earned his bachelor’s from Coppin State University, master’s degrees from St John’s University and Georgetown University, and received his doctorate in urban educational leadership from Trident University. He also has several education certificates, including one from Harvard University, his biography said. It added that he competed in track and field at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, and in the World Championships in Maebashi, Japan and Seville, Spain. The IOC website lists him as a Guyanese athlete who was born in 1970.
