This story will be updated with more information.
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Former Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Ian Roberts has been charged with illegally possessing four firearms while in the U.S. without legal status, according to a federal criminal complaint unsealed Thursday that includes detailed allegations about Roberts’ immigration status and arrest.
Roberts, a Guyana native, was ordered removed from the U.S. in absentia in May 2024, and according to the complaint, and an immigration judge denied a request to reopen Roberts’ case on April 30, 2025. The complaint states Roberts has not been authorized to work in the U.S. since Dec.18, 2020. He was hired by DMPS in 2023.
The complaint states that after ICE agents arrested Roberts last Friday morning, a DMPS employee came to pick up the district-owned car that Roberts was driving. Inside, the DMPS employee found a loaded firearm wrapped in a towel under the driver’s seat. The complaint stated the gun was bought by a woman believed to be Roberts’ wife.
Federal agents found three more firearms in Roberts’ house, according to the complaint. They also said they found Roberts’ deportation order and other immigration papers under the floor mat of a car in Roberts’ garage.
Roberts will be held in federal custody pending further legal proceedings, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa.
He was no longer being held in the Woodbury County jail as of Thursday morning, according to the county sheriff’s office.
