ICE Robbed Des Moines of More Than a Public Servant

ICE makes us less safe and stands in the way of justice.

IF you care about due process and IF you care about the rule of law and IF you care about justice then everything surrounding the arrest of the now former superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools (DMPS), Dr. Ian Roberts, should infuriate you. This whole event has been awful for everyone involved, from students who looked up to him, parents who trusted him, and administrators who appointed him, but something is being missed in this discussion. The presence of ICE and why it should not only be abolished, but if it’s going to be around, it absolutely shouldn’t ever operate this way. It makes us LESS safe, not safer. Instead of only focusing on the purported misdeeds of Roberts, we should be asking the larger question about what is being taken from our communities, and guess what, it’s more than a trusted school administrator.

For those reading this outside of the Des Moines area, what happened is the superintendent of DMPS, Dr. Ian Roberts, was targeted by an ICE raid and arrested for being in violation of legal citizenship status. He was arrested on the South side of Des Moines and reportedly in a school vehicle. After the arrest it was reported that he had no legal status to work in the US, he had a few thousand dollars in cash on hand as well as a gun in a holster on the floor of the vehicle. There were no reports of violence, though it was also reported that he did attempt to evade the ICE agents on foot. Des Moines Police were not involved in any of this. Roberts was in custody and hours away from the community by the time most of this had become public knowledge. Prior to all of these events, Roberts was a trusted administrator for DMPS and prior communities with a track record of inspiration and educational improvement during the time he served as superintendent. It should also be noted that there are allegations that Roberts did in fact misrepresent his educational and citizenship status to both the Iowa Department of Education as well as the DMPS school board.

Abolish ICE.

What has become apparent though is that quite a few folks, and not an insignificant number of bots¹ , think that the spiriting away of people isn’t the problem. Imprisonment without trial isn’t a problem. The post-hoc rationalization isn’t the problem. Hell, for them, the facts of the matter aren’t the problem.

What IS a problem for them? Democrats², mostly, but we can address that later or in another piece. Rather the focus seems to be on Roberts’ misdeeds rather than on what this actually means for accountability.

But what is infuriating to me is the inability of the media outlets to highlight just how much is being stolen from the Des Moines community, and communities across the country, by these targeted ICE attacks. Des Moines didn’t just lose a superintendent; they lost their ability to know what is going on in their own community. ICE, and by extension, the Trump administration is very explicitly removing the ability of communities across the country to govern, respond, and sometimes even participate in their own institutions.

Dr. Ian Roberts, former superintendent of DMPS

I want you to think about this scenario here, and we’ll use Roberts as an example because I think it is extremely important for all of us to imagine a better world here. Say Roberts did in fact lie on his resume, something that I would think everyone in the community should want to know about. From the Iowa Department of Education that issued him the license to the school board members who trusted in his leadership, everyone in that case would have been lied to, or at best misinformed. Let us also assume that Roberts KNEW about his immigration status and either thought it was resolved, or at worst, was actively hiding to avoid prosecution. Basically, let us imagine all of the worst things about Roberts are in fact true and, setting aside his actual good record as a superintendent, was a fraudster:

Would it not have been better for those that knew about these things or had uncovered them to present them to the community? Imagine how much differently this all would have happened not only to respect the rights of Roberts, but the right of the Des Moines community to be informed about what is happening. Would it not have been better to hold a press release or conference about Roberts and call him to the carpet? Would it not have been better to inform the DMPS school what was discovered, and have them proceed with that new information? Would it not have been better to inform even the state of Iowa that the superintendent of their largest and most diverse school district might have a paperwork problem regarding their citizenship status?

The question we really ought to be asking is: Why didn’t ICE just say something first?

Because ICE didn’t release any information, and instead, arrested and whisked away the man, all of these questions about Roberts’ character, history, resume, and even recent behavior are going to remain unanswered. Instead, we are left scrambling to find out what is or is not true with wild accusations and defenses on all sides. We are left with bad actors speculating on the allegiances of VOLUNTEER school board members or the hiring firms that have been used to vet candidates. We are left with few answers and feel less safe and less informed than we would have been with more transparency and public statements. We are left with folks finding a reason to justify the dismissal or defense of Roberts when all that really had to be done was release the documentation and operate in the open.

Instead, ICE violently arrested a person and removed them from his community without so much as a peep until the deed was done.

None of this makes us feel safer or trust in our government. ICE circumvented all of the processes in place based on what ultimately was a paperwork issue. No checks, no balances, just out of nowhere they disappear a person. This is disgraceful. This makes us see that ICE isn’t about keeping us safe or enforcing laws, it’s about scaring a community into compliance. Why bother with paperwork and due process when you can just snatch people off the street and figure out any crimes after the fact in absentia?

We’re supposed to trust people that do this, usually with their face covered, and feel safe?

Because of these terrible actions by ICE and the federal government, finding justice is now MORE difficult, not easier. Roberts can’t speak for himself to answer the allegations about him. School districts and hiring firms are scrambling to find answers and filing law suits, all which is made more complicated and difficult because the person at the center of these allegations is cut off and behind bars. How is anyone supposed to find answers now? What if Roberts did all of the misdeeds but was an American citizen? Does this somehow make all of this OK? What if Roberts is innocent of all other charges, but wasn’t a citizen? Does THIS make it somehow OK?

The answer to all of that is no, and the follow up answer is to Abolish ICE.

ICE has robbed our community of the ability to find answers and use due process to get to the bottom of what was going on. A scenario where Roberts comes forward and has an opportunity to explain and resolve issues is a far better one than where his character is assassinated while he’s hundreds of miles from his home. Even if he is guilty of every allegation against him, we should all agree that due process is more important than violence against people, citizen, immigrant, or otherwise. It is frankly disgusting to me that a significant portion of our population is fine throwing away habeas corpus and due process, and even gun rights³, away because of the color of a person’s skin or their immigration status. No one should be assaulted by ICE in this way, especially when they aren’t violent nor have any history of being such, it helps no one and only serves to damage communities.

You’ll note that all of this is secondary to the immigration issues and the enforcement of immigration laws. By all rights Roberts was a person who seemed to have turned not only his life around, but many of the districts he worked for, including the DMPS district. Yet, all of that is erased because of our archaic and confusing immigration system. I have yet to see a good argument that folks born in other places are uniquely disqualified from public work or acceptance and participation in our communities. The data actually points in the opposite⁴ direction with immigrants being less violent, less likely to commit crimes, and are a massive economic boon to the places they move to.

Each of us tired after doing the hard work of completing our citizenship process with our mothers.

If you’re reading this, more than likely you’ve had to do the exact same thing that I had to do to become a citizen: absolutely nothing. The idea that having the right “papers” is simply toxic to the idea of building community and moving our society forward. To worry about someone’s immigration status before being concerned with their character is to live in the realm of regressive fascists and ought have no place in our public discourse. ICE being involved removes our ability to build communities while threatening the rights guaranteed to all peoples in the United States by the Constitution. This should frustrate everyone from the most revisionist originalist to centrist democrats to those actively interested in human rights. Means testing folks’ humanity by means of “having the right papers” means you think one’s humanity rests upon administrative processes. That is the thinking of fascists and authoritarians.

That is anti-human.

No one should be spirited away, mistreated, or abused by a state, especially based on vague references to paperwork. This is the way of fascism, and supporting this is to support fascism. Supporting ICE is to support fascism.

Abolish ICE.

Getting rid of ICE would make us safer and deliver us more justice. If ICE wasn’t involved in the process with Roberts, we would all know more about what is going on and would be able to seek justice. ICE, republicans, and the Trump administration have stolen that from us and for that we should not forgive or forget this. This is happening countless times across the country and drives home the point that ICE isn’t here to make us safer or to protect us - it exists to sow fear, confusion, and undermine communities both large and small across the United States. ICE steals our ability to hold people accountable for their faults and to celebrate their successes whether its Roberts in Des Moines, a student writing an op ed in a college paper, or children coming home to an empty house because their parents went to a legal meeting with their immigration attorney.

Want justice and accountability? ABOLISH ICE.

1. Seriously go look at the profiles commenting on social media with hateful and silly things and click on them. About half seem to be fake profiles with no pictures, connections, or content other than right wing relinks and shilling, its crazy how much social media has been infested with this!

2. Many racists and ICE apologists care more about party affiliation than any process or Constitutional right. I’d say they were NPC’s if they weren’t so directly responsible for the crumbling of our democracy.

3. Its interesting how the pro-gun crowd that believes more guns makes us safer are quick to disqualify gun-havers based on paperwork technicalities. They are strangely FOR gun laws that apply to others, but want no restrictions on themselves. Almost like that entire ideology is dishonest and racist. Weird.

4. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/immigrants-do-not-commit-more-crimes-in-the-us-despite-fearmongering/