Ex-head of Des Moines schools sentenced to 2 years in prison for misrepresenting U.S. citizenship

ImmigrationEx-head of Des Moines schools sentenced to 2 years in prison for misrepresenting U.S. citizenshipRoberts, the first Black educator to lead the Des Moines school district, pleaded guilty to the federal charges.Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00Ian Roberts, former superintendent of the Des Moines school district, in 2025.Cody Blissett / The Des Moines Register / USA Today NetworkShareAdd NBC News to GoogleMay 29, 2026, 3:04 PM EDTBy Corky SiemaszkoThe former superintendent of Iowa’s largest school district was sentenced Friday to two years in federal prison for falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Upon completing his sentence, Ian Roberts will likely be deported to his native Guyana.“I regret what I’ve done every single day,” Roberts said before the judge handed down the sentence.Before the hearing, Roberts’ lawyers told the judge that he fled his homeland in 1994 because he had been a police officer and was “seeking safety from his undercover drug work.”Roberts became the first Black educator to helm Des Moines Public Schools when he was hired in 2023 to lead the district of about 30,000 students.After submitting a Social Security card and a driver’s license as verifying documents, Roberts stated he was a U.S. citizen in his application to the state board of educational examiners, which issued him a professional administrator license in 2023, the district said.Before the sentencing, Roberts’ lawyers confirmed that was not true.“Dr. Roberts made a fatal mistake when he completed an I-9 to work with Des Moines Public Schools ... falsely affirming he was a United States citizen,” his lawyers wrote in a 173-page brief to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa.Roberts’ arrest in September by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents shocked Des Moines and sparked a walkout by hundreds of middle and high school students and p...