Breaking: Iowa superintendent in ICE custody, facing deportation after Friday arrest 

The superintendent of Iowa’s largest school district is in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody and facing possible deportation. 

Ian Andre Roberts, who became head of the district in 2023, was apprehended Friday following a brief chase after he allegedly fled from his vehicle and was found hiding in a bush by a K-9, according to the Des Moines Register. Roberts, 54, was reportedly arrested on a weapons charge in 2020 and was found Friday with a loaded handgun, $3,000 in cash and a large hunting knife, the outlet reported. 

A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said a court issued a “final order of removal” for the Guyana native in May 2024. He is being held in the Pottawattamie County Jail, which the Register noted is near the Omaha Immigration Court, the closest federal immigration court to Des Moines. 

Roberts reportedly grew up in Brooklyn, New York, but competed for Guyana as a mid-distance runner in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. 

Des Moines Mayor Connie Boesen said the city did not receive advance notice of Roberts’ detention. 

Iowa state troopers were called to assist ICE Friday morning “in locating an individual who fled from a traffic stop initiated by their agents,” according to a release. 

While liberal groups criticized the arrest, saying it left “black and brown kids worried,” conservative politicians questioned how “an illegal alien from Guyana and active ICE fugitive” could lead the state’s largest school district. 

“He should have never been anywhere around Iowa kids in the first place!” U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, wrote on X. 

“How does the biggest school district miss the red flags?” asked state Sen. Mike Bousselot, R-Ankeny, suggesting the legislature might hold oversight hearings. 

But Rep. Larry McBurney, D-Des Moines, called the arrest “federal overreach” and an “outright disgrace,” accusing ICE of playing politics. 

Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin posted that a senior ICE official said Roberts first entered the U.S. in 1999 on an F-1 student visa at St. John’s University. On April 24, 2025, an immigration judge in Dallas denied a motion to reopen his immigration case, leading to the final removal order the following month, the official said. 

(Image credit: Screenshot/X)