The superintendent of Iowa’s largest school district was placed on administrative leave on Saturday, a day following his arrest by ICE agents for being in the country illegally.

The Des Moines school district board voted unanimously to place Superintendent Ian Roberts, 54, on paid leave due to his inability to fulfill his responsibilities for the 30,000-student district in light of his arrest.

The board mentioned that they would reconsider Roberts’s employment status for his $305,000 a year position once they received more details, and expressed general support for him.

Following Roberts’s arrest, school board chair Jackie Norris, who formerly served as White House chief of staff for then-first lady Michelle Obama, urged for ‘radical empathy’ as Roberts’s case unfolded.

After the session where Roberts was placed on leave, Norris commented that his arrest had resulted in a ‘jarring day,’ but stated that officials ‘do not possess all the facts.’

‘There is much we do not know,’ she said. ‘However, what we do know is that Dr. Roberts has been an essential part of our school community since he joined over two years ago.’

Republicans in the state legislature have launched an investigation into how Roberts was able to be hired in the first place. 

After Roberts’s arrest, more than 200 Des Moines residents swarmed the downtown Iowa area to protest.

Rallying protestors chanted ‘free Dr. Roberts’ and ‘no justice no peace’ while holding signs that read ‘release our superintendent,’ KCCI reported. 

ICE said Roberts was arrested because he was in the country illegally, did not have work authorization and had been subject to a final removal order since May of last year. 

The agency also said he had a weapons possession charge dating from February 2020 that was still pending.

Agents attempted to stop Roberts while he was driving in a school-issued car before he sped away into a wooded area and abandoned the vehicle. Iowa State Patrol later found him hiding in a brush south of the abandoned car. 

Police said they found a loaded gun, a fixed blade hunting knife and $3,000 cash in his car. 

Roberts was held in the Woodbury County Jail in Sioux City, in northwest Iowa, about 150 miles from Des Moines.

‘This suspect was arrested in possession of a loaded weapon in a vehicle provided by Des Moines Public Schools after fleeing federal law enforcement,’ said ICE Enforcement Removal Operations St. Paul Field Office Director Sam Olson.

‘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.’

School board chair Norris said ‘I want to be clear, no one here was aware of any citizenship or immigration issues that Dr. Roberts may have been facing.

‘The accusations ICE had made against Dr. Roberts are very serious, and we are taking them very seriously.’ 

Roberts has retained a Des Moines law firm to represent him in his case. 

Norris maintains that the school district did a background check on Roberts before he was hired and that no red flags had been raised. She also said that he had signed a form affirming he was a US citizen when he was hired. 

A firm that was hired to do a thorough background check on Roberts when he was hired in 2023 also did not find any issues with his immigration status. 

The Iowa Department of Education released a statement on Saturday saying Roberts stated he was a US citizen when he applied for an administrator license. 

The department also said the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners conducted a criminal history check on Roberts before the license was issued. 

They said they are now reviewing the Des Moines school district’s hiring procedures, particularly its methods for ensuring applicants are authorized to work in the country.

Roberts has said he was born to immigrant parents from Guyana and spent much of his childhood in Brooklyn, New York. He competed in the 2000 Olympics track and field event representing Guyana. 

He came to the US in 1999 on a student visa, and starting in September 2000, he had a brief stint as a teacher in the New York City public school system. He spent the next nine years in Baltimore public schools, where he eventually became a principal.

Since 2015, he has worked in schools in St. Louis, Missouri; Oakland, California; Erie, Pennsylvania; Kansas City, Missouri; and of course Des Moines.

Before serving as the superintendent for the Des Moines school district, Roberts was the superintended at the Millcreek Township school district in Pennsylvania. 

While he was in that role, three gender discrimination lawsuits were filed against the school district, which had to pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars over the claims. One male employee said Roberts had a preference for women in higher positions. 

A judge ordered the former superintendent’s deportation in May 2024, which was held in absentia or without the defendant present.

A request was made to reopen the case in April 2025 but a Dallas immigration judge decided against it.