Illegal migrant with criminal history found to be running schools

 An illegal migrant with a criminal history who was in charge of overseeing the running of a number of schools in Iowa is now facing deportation.

Ian Roberts, the superintendent of the Des Moines School Board, was arrested by ICE agents after he was found to be an undocumented migrant with a final order for deportation.

The arrest of the popular superintendent sparked a backlash in the state leading his supporters to protest for his release.

In addition to him being in the US illegally, inconsistencies in his CV and previous run-ins with the law, which allegedly involved Mr Roberts carrying a gun through an airport, have since emerged.

Mr Roberts was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers on Sept 26 after he was found hiding, dressed in a suit, near a trailer park.

Investigators said he had fled in a Jeep owned by the school district, where a loaded handgun, a hunting knife and $3,000 in cash were later recovered.

When he was selected to run the public school district in 2023, he was viewed as the sort of inspiring leader who could turn around the district after the Covid-19 pandemic.

The former Olympic athlete had a compelling life story, having immigrated from Guyana, allegedly earned degrees from impressive universities and spent most of his career in urban school systems building a reputation for his hands-on approach.

“I believe deeply in the promise of public education being the most important opportunity gap closer for youth, particularly with a focus on diverse populations,” Mr Roberts wrote in his cover letter, according to The New York Times.

Despite a past brush with the law and an inconsistency about where he obtained his doctorate, the school board moved ahead with hiring him after two outside vetting companies confirmed he was a US citizen.

For two years, Mr Roberts oversaw the education of 30,000 children in the public system and ushered in improvements in academic standards.

Even after a Texas judge ordered him to be deported last year, Mr Roberts allegedly continued to drop into classrooms and encouraged voters to approve more funds for the district.

Mr Roberts had arrived in the US from South America in his 20s and attended Coppin State University in Baltimore, where he competed in the athletics team.

He went on to represent Guyana, running in the 800m at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

According to ICE, Mr Roberts entered the US on a visitors’ visa in 1994 when he was in his twenties and had arrests in New York in 1996 for drug charges and in 1998 on a charge of using an unauthorised vehicle, which was later dismissed.

After receiving a five-year student visa in 1999, the year after obtaining a bachelor’s degree from Coppin State, he undertook a master’s in education at St John’s University in New York.

In 2001, he unsuccessfully applied to become a permanent US resident and went on to work as a teacher in Baltimore for five years before becoming a principal.

A former public school official who once interviewed Mr Roberts praised his “incredible energy” and the “tremendous rapport” he had with kids, according to The New York Times.

Throughout the subsequent years, the teacher’s immigration status remained unclear, though ICE indicated to the newspaper that he had legal status in the country from 2018 to 2020.

During this time, he led a struggling high school in Washington, DC and a district office in St Louis, Missouri, specialising in turning around underperforming urban public schools.

In 2020, he was hired as a superintendent at a school district in Pennsylvania, telling the school system he was an American citizen when he applied, district leaders said.

Months later, his authorisation to work in the country is alleged to have expired.

Following his arrest, Mr Roberts was first placed on paid leave, then unpaid leave before the school board accepted his resignation.

Further holes have since emerged in the educator’s CV. Mr Roberts claimed on his application in Iowa and Pennsylvania that he had a doctorate from Morgan State University. However, university officials said he never received his degree.

An article on the Des Moines Public Schools site said that Mr Roberts received a Master’s degree from MIT, but the university said it had no record of him attending.

While Des Moines School Board officials were aware of a citation against Mr Roberts for having a loaded gun in a vehicle in Pennsylvania, they were unaware of a separate alleged arrest in 2020 for carrying a gun through an airport.

In the now-sealed case in New York, Mr Roberts was allegedly arrested for carrying a gun in his bag at LaGuardia Airport, an official told The New York Times. It is not clear if he was charged.

A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said he “should have never been able to work around children”.

Jackie Norris, the chairwoman of the Des Moines School Board, said the district had followed the law and relied on an outside firm, JG Consulting, to assess Mr Roberts’s credentials.

On Friday, the school district sued JG consulting, accusing it of failing to vet Mr Roberts properly. A lawyer for the consulting firm defended its work and said that the teacher “provided the documents necessary to show that he was eligible for the position”.

Mr Roberts’s lawyer said that the Department of Homeland Security was attempting to “demonise” his client.

“It is a disturbing pattern that will fail,” Mr Parrish told The New York Times, adding that “the public will see that Dr. Roberts is a good man whose main interest was inspiring and educating young people”.

The Department of Homeland Security, Des Moines School Board, JG Consulting and representatives for Mr Roberts were approached for comment.