The former superintendent of Iowa’s largest school district who was arrested last year in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown was sentenced Friday to two years in prison.
Ian Roberts is likely to be deported to his native Guyana in South America once he serves the sentence. He pleaded guilty in January to falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen and illegally possessing firearms.
Prosecutors alleged Roberts knowingly lacked employment authorization for nearly all of his two-decade career in urban education and submitted a counterfeit Social Security card when he was hired to lead the Des Moines public school district, which serves 30,000 students. His September arrest occurred as President Donald Trump’s administration was sending increased numbers of federal immigration officers into American cities to round up immigrants.
In pleading for leniency, he told the judge Friday that he knew he had disappointed many people, including children in Des Moines and other communities where he had worked.
“I regret what I’ve done every single day,” Roberts said.
Both counts together carried a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. His lawyers had proposed that he be put on probation “to facilitate his removal from the United States,” but prosecutors had argued that his likely deportation should not be a factor. They sought a three-year sentence.
In explaining her decision, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger said Roberts knowingly lied about his citizenship status to earn an “incredible position of trust.” While she described the dozens of letters of support that were submitted on his behalf as powerful, she said probation was not a sufficient sentence.
Separately, Des Moines Public Schools said last month that it revised its conflict-of-interest policy after an audit found Roberts awarded district business to a consulting firm he worked for, affirming findings first reported by The Associated Press in the weeks after federal immigration officers detained him.
Roberts was in his school-issued vehicle when officers stopped him on Sept. 26 in a targeted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation. He allegedly fled before he was located with the help of state troopers. Authorities said a loaded handgun was wrapped in a towel under the seat and $3,000 in cash was in the car. Three other weapons were recovered during a search of his home.
In a court filing, attorneys for Roberts said he has dedicated his life in the U.S. to public service and has not been a threat to public safety. After Roberts married a U.S. citizen, his attorneys said, he was denied lawful permanent residency because he failed to disclose that he had been arrested. He said he did not think he needed to because the charges against him were dropped.
“While Dr. Roberts tried to adjust his status three more times, this initial mistake by Dr. Roberts sealed his fate,” his attorneys wrote. “In the background of his career for the next 24 years, this denial of his adjustment of status haunted Dr. Roberts like a ghost, eventually derailing his life and career.”
His lawyers noted that he likely faces deportation to Guyana, where he will “be left without his career, without his wife, without his children, in a country where he has not lived for thirty years.”
Prosecutors described a yearslong and deliberate misrepresentation of his legal status. They said a reduced sentence is not appropriate just because Roberts is likely to be deported.
They said they do not know what documents Roberts presented to show eligibility for work dating back to 2008, years before he was approved for temporary status in 2018 but that he “deliberately obtained employment without work authorization at school after school, within state after state.”
