Jason Benell lives in Des Moines with his wife and two children. He is a combat veteran, former city council candidate, and president of Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers. This essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, The Odd Man Out.
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 Dr. Ian Roberts, former superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools (DMPS), 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 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The agency should be abolished—but if it’s going to be around, it absolutely shouldn’t ever operate this way. Its actions make us less safe, not safer.
Instead of only focusing on Roberts’ purported misdeeds, we should be asking the larger question about what is being taken from our communities. Guess what? It’s more than a trusted school administrator.
For those reading this outside of the Des Moines area, ICE targeted and arrested Superintendent Dr. Ian Roberts for being in violation of legal citizenship status. He was arrested on the south side of Des Moines, reportedly in a school vehicle. After the arrest it was reported that he had no legal status to work in the U.S., he had $3,000 cash on hand as well as a gun in a holster on the floor of the vehicle.
There were no reports of violence, though ICE said Roberts attempted to evade the 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’s worth noting that Roberts’ attorney has acknowledged he is a citizen of Guyana, which would suggest he misrepresented his educational and citizenship status to the Iowa Department of Education and the Des Moines School Board.)
What has become apparent, though, is that quite a few folks, including many social media accounts that appear to be bots, 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 this case aren’t the problem.
What is a problem for them? Democrats, mostly—Many racists and ICE apologists seem to care more about party affiliation than any process or constitutional right. But that’s a topic for another day.
The focus seems to be on Roberts’ misdeeds rather than on what this actually means for accountability.
What infuriates me is that media outlets seem unable to highlight just how much these targeted ICE attacks are stealing from the Des Moines community, and communities across the country. 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 removing the ability of communities across the country to govern, respond, and sometimes even participate in their own institutions.
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. Let’s 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 (which issued his administrator’s 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 who knew about these things or had uncovered them to present them to the community? Imagine how much differently this all would have played out—not only to respect Roberts’ rights, 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 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, many questions about Roberts’ character, history, resume, and even recent behavior will 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 needed 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?
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 a U.S. citizen? Does this somehow make all of this OK? What if Roberts is innocent of all other charges, but wasn’t a citizen? Would that 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 chance 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 rights, away because of the color of a person’s skin or their immigration status. (It’s fascinating how the pro-gun crowd, which believes more guns makes us saferm 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.)
No one should be assaulted by ICE in this way, especially when they aren’t violent and have no violent history. That 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 Des Moines school 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 opposite direction; immigrants are less violent, are less likely to commit crimes, and are a massive economic boon to the places where they settle.
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. We just had to be born in this country.
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. That should have no place in our public discourse.
Involving ICE removes our ability to build communities while threatening the rights the Constitution guarantees to all peoples in the United States. 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.
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 we should not forgive or forget that.
The same thing is happening countless times across the country, which drives home the point that ICE isn’t here to make us safer or to protect us. Rather, it exists to sow fear, confusion, and undermine communities both large and small across the U.S. ICE steals our ability to hold people accountable for their faults and to celebrate their successes—whether it’s 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.