Ian Roberts, a 54-year-old educator with decades of experience in the U.S. public school system, is an unlikely example of the flaws in America's immigration system. The case involves the superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools (DMPS), Iowa's largest school district, overseeing approximately 30,000 students.
On September 26, 2025, ICE conducted a targeted enforcement operation in Des Moines, leading to Roberts' arrest. Agents attempted to stop the vehicle provided to him by the school district, but he fled, abandoning the car. With assistance from the Iowa State Patrol, officers located him later that day. At the time of apprehension, he was found in possession of a loaded handgun, $3,000 in cash, and a fixed-blade hunting knife—all discovered in or near his vehicle. He was initially detained at the Woodbury County Law Enforcement Center in Sioux City, Iowa.
ICE did not file new formal criminal charges related to immigration in the immediate announcement, but detained Roberts for civil immigration violations stemming from his unlawful presence and employment. How could a respected member of the Des Moines community, leading a school district, be in the country illegally?
Roberts' story shows how many immigrants treat America's laws with little respect, and how numerous organizations and companies routinely violate immigration laws. It highlights President Trump's frequent assertions that foreigners have taken advantage of America's lenient policies.
Roberts entered the United States on a student visa in 1999. After graduation, he was entitled to work for one year on a no-questions-asked Optional Practical Training (OPT) visa, a topic of much debate in recent years due to documented cases of visa abuse. (An NBC News/NBC Bay Area investigation in 2020 revealed that the OPT visa was routinely being exploited by fake companies that provided false employment verifications.)
As a professional not trained in high-demand fields, such as Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), Dr. Roberts was not eligible for a two-year STEM-OPT extension. For Dr. Roberts to remain in the United States legally, he should have sought sponsorship from an employer for an H-1B visa. (Read our editorial on the uproar surrounding H-1B visa dated August 31.)
Dr. Roberts apparently never pursued the legitimate course of action. He presumably found employment on the OPT visa, which grants him an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) valid for one year, but continued working after the visa expired. Worse, he changed jobs numerous times, each time falsely claiming on applications that he was legally entitled to work in the United States. Each time, the organizations that employed him failed to verify his claim, despite federal law requiring employers to file the I-9 verification form for all employees, including U.S. citizens.
In the District's defense, it had retained the services of an outside consulting firm to vet Dr. Roberts. However, the firm never verified whether he was here legally. According to The New York Times, the president of the background check firm stated that "immigration-related issues were outside the scope of their review."
The Des Moines School District hired Dr. Roberts as Superintendent in 2023. His salary was a whopping $286,000, far higher than the median household income of Iowans (about $73,000). Meanwhile, Dr. Roberts concealed his travails with the U.S. government regarding his visa overstay. A federal immigration judge issued a final order of removal against him in May 2024, directing him to leave the United States after overstaying a student visa he had used to enter the country in 1999. America’s system of checks and balances is so flawed that it took 25 years for a court to issue a final removal order on a clearly unlawful case. Dr. Roberts did not appeal the court order, meaning that it immediately became enforceable, rendering Dr. Roberts an ICE fugitive.
In a mockery of American immigration law, Dr. Roberts continued as superintendent despite being a fugitive from ICE. He had previously been charged with illegally possessing weapons, with public records indicating a guilty plea to a firearms offense in Pennsylvania in 2022.
ICE Des Moines Field Office Director Sam Olson stated, "This should be a wake-up call for our communities to the great work that our officers are doing every day to remove public safety threats. How this illegal alien was hired without work authorization, (stayed in this country after) a final order of removal and a prior weapons charge is beyond comprehension, and should alarm the parents of that school district."
The Biden-Harris administration let in nearly 18 million illegal aliens during their four-year tenure. About a year ago, the acting chief of Biden's Immigration and Customs Enforcement released a letter to Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican Congressman. The letter said that under Harris, the border czar, America had caught and released into the country over 662,000 migrants with criminal records. Worse, more than 15,000 of them were murderers convicted in their home countries, and 16,000 were convicted of sexual assault. Other crimes included 100,000 assaults, 70,000 drug violations, 90,000 invasions of privacy, and 16,000 weapons offenses.
Trump's ICE is systematically attempting to reverse this horror, but is encountering resistance at every turn, in Washington, among the Democrats, in the media, on the streets, and especially in the courts. The sad truth is that most of these illegal aliens have far worse criminal records than Dr. Roberts - and all of them are still here, in America, walking our streets, thumbing their noses at our nation's laws.
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