League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)

Ian Andre Roberts believed in the quiet promise of public education. At Coppin State University he began as a sprinter—disciplined, relentless, always leaning forward. But the most defining miles of his life were run not on a track but inside public schools, where he chose to build opportunity one classroom at a time. His story was not glamorous; it was faithful—faithful to children, to learning, to a profession that demands both toughness and hope.

Roberts became a teacher. Then a principal. Then a superintendent. He earned a master’s degree from St. John’s University and began a doctorate at Morgan State. His work was public, transparent, accountable. He was the superintendent who returned calls from anxious parents and stayed late at winter concerts. He was the face of the school district, the one paid to answer for every broken heater, every suspension policy, every graduation rate. He built trust—not by speech, but by showing up.

Until the day the U.S. government came for him.

In September, ICE agents arrested Dr. Roberts after a local police search reportedly turned up a handgun in his home. In much of the U.S., a firearm in a residence is as ordinary as a lawnmower in a garage. But this is not a question of firearms. This is about status. About papers. About immigration law used as a weapon against a man who served. Roberts now sits in an ICE detention facility—locked away not for violence or fraud, but for a paperwork dispute that now threatens to erase his life’s work and tear him from the students he once served.

This should trouble us—not only because it is unjust, but because it reveals a deeper national contradiction. We say we have a teacher shortage. We say we care about students. We insist that education is the key to economic mobility. And yet—we are detaining, deporting, and shutting out the very educators our schools so desperately need.

According to the Maryland State Department of Education’s 2025 Educator Workforce Report, Maryland entered this school year with 1,619 vacant teaching positions. To prevent classrooms from going dark, the state employed 6,177 conditionally certified teachers—a triage solution, not a plan. And according to the state’s Accountability and Implementation Board, Maryland cannot meet the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future teacher staffing goals on its current timeline.

The shortage is not seasonal. It is structural. And it lands hardest on Black and Latino students—schools already facing larger class sizes and fewer advanced coursework options.

Yet at this very moment, federal immigration policy has turned hostile to public education. The Department of Homeland Security’s proposed H-1B visa overhaul abandons talent in favor of a wage-weighted system built for Silicon Valley. Corporate employers will dominate the new visa pool because they can offer inflated salaries. Public school districts cannot compete. The crisis is most severe in math and science classrooms, which the Maryland State Department of Education lists among the top teacher shortage areas year after year.

Now comes a move so punitive it borders on absurd: The proposal also includes a $100,000 fee that must accompany new H-1B visa petitions submitted after September 21, 2025. That is not a processing fee—that is economic exclusion. It ensures only wealthy corporations will have access to global talent. Districts serving the highest concentrations of Latino and Black students—already contending with the deepest STEM teacher shortages—will now be priced out of recruiting the very educators they need to compete.

Meanwhile, the FY 2026 federal education budget signals abandonment, not leadership. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s summary, the budget includes a 15.3% cut in federal education funding—crippling teacher preparation programs and collapsing educator pipelines at HBCUs and Minority-Serving Institutions. Programs like the Augustus F. Hawkins Centers of Excellence, which support teacher development at institutions including Morgan State, Bowie State, and Coppin State, are now at risk. So are teacher residency partnerships that strengthen instructional quality in high-need schools. These cuts will hurt every student—but they will devastate working-class communities.

Maryland has tried to fight back with the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, a historic commitment to expand career pathways, elevate teacher pay, and build an education system rooted in equity. But even the Blueprint cannot outrun federal sabotage. No state—no matter how visionary—can recruit teachers while the U.S. is detaining educators and pricing public schools out of the visa system.

Immigration policy. Workforce policy. Education policy. These are not separate debates. They form one moral question: Does this nation still believe in its children?

Because if we continue down this path, we will not just deport a superintendent—we will exile our children from their own future.

Laura Bravo Perez, Ines Alvarado, and Axel Valencia are Research and Policy Fellows at the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the nation’s largest and oldest Latino civil rights organization.

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