(Radio Iowa) – The superintendent who’s in a western Iowa jail after being arrested by immigration agents last Friday is fighting a deportation order — but not his dismissal from Des Moines public schools. Alfredo Parrish is one of the attorneys working on Ian Roberts’ immigration case. “We will today be sending a letter to the Des Moines School Board, authorized by Dr. Roberts, to resign his position,” Parrish said.

The Des Moines school board gave Roberts until noon today (Tuesday) to provide documents proving he is eligible to work in the U.S. or he’d be fired. In the letter announcing his immediate resignation, Roberts said he did not want to distract the Board, educators and staff from focusing on educating the district’s students.  “We want you to know that Dr. Roberts’ greatest concern is about his students who he actually loved and the students who love him back and his staff,” Parrish said.

In May of 2024, a federal judge issued a deportation order for Roberts and an appeal to reopen his case was rejected earlier this year. Parrish says Roberts thought everything was O.K. and his case was resolved in April. “Dr. Roberts had a prior attorney,” Parrish told reporters. “This prior attorney was in Texas…I’m going to share a letter that was received from the prior attorney, telling (Roberts) his case had been closed successfully, and (Roberts) was under the impression that it had been.”

Betty Andrews, president of the Iowa/Nebraska chapter of the NAACP and three lawyers on Ian Roberts’ legal team listen as Alfredo Parrish, the team’ lead attorney, spoke to the media on Sept. 30, 2025. (RI photo)

The letter released to the media today (Tuesday) from a partner in a Texas law firm indicated the case had reached a successful resolution. Parrish says Roberts’ new legal team has filed a motion to block the deportation of Roberts and they will be seeking to reopen Roberts’ immigration case. Parrish was asked why Roberts claimed to be a U.S. citizen and presented a Social Security card when he was filling out the paperwork to be paid by Des Moines Schools.

“Both of those things I’m able to respond to,” Parrish told reporters, “but quite frankly I don’t want to respond at this point but as you may or may not know certain people coming into this country are entitled to get a Social Security number. We’ve thoroughly checked that out. That’s not our concern at the moment.” During a mid-day news conference, Parrish confirmed Roberts was born in Guyana in 1970, but declined to say whether Roberts was a U.S. citizen or if he was authorized to work in the U.S. Parrish says he hasn’t had access to Roberts’ immigration file yet.

“Some questions we will not be able to answer,” Parrish said. “It’s only because we’re not going to get into the merits of this case yet because we’re simply just not prepared in four days to do that.” Parrish indicated the case had been juggling through the court system for several years and it does not appear President Trump had any role in pressing for Roberts’ arrest.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced shortly after the news conference that it had opened an investigation of Des Moines Public Schools to determine if it has race-based employment practices.