Patricia Lopez, Columnist

The Iowa Immigration Case That Is a Bipartisan Embarrassment

October 3, 2025 at 11:00 AM UTC

Patricia Lopez is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics and policy. She is a former member of the editorial board at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where she also worked as a senior political editor and reporter.

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How exactly does a Guyanan immigrant alleged to be in the US illegally come to be superintendent of the largest school district in Iowa? Just as important, how did Ian Roberts get hired by a half-dozen public school districts in the US over the last 25 years before landing his $300,000-a-year job in Des Moines?

These are questions that point to serious flaws in the public hiring and immigration processes that took decades to catch up to Roberts. His arrest on Friday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents set off an embarrassing set of revelations that have betrayed a community’s trust and illustrate the myriad flaws of the US immigration system — flaws highlighted by President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.