Washington, D.C. (August 7, 2023) – New Center for Immigration Studies analyses examine legislation signed recently by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker to allow certain non-citizens become police officers, including illegal aliens who are Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) recipients and other work-authorized classes of aliens. Permitting those in the country illegally to enforce the law against legal residents raises questions regarding fairness and integrity.

In her piece, Elizabeth Jacobs, the Center for Immigration Studies director of regulatory affairs and policy, explains how the new law will work, who is newly eligible to become a police officer, and the messy legal issues it will create, including whether DACA recipients are even permitted to carry firearms.

Jacobs says, “the new Illinois law was clearly passed to at least message a disregard for the validity of U.S. immigration law. Allowing aliens who are removable from the United States on account of their unlawful immigration status to hold law enforcement positions that will require them to enforce other federal, state, and local laws should be concerning to any American who values the rule of law in this country.”

The new law has generated a great deal of outrage – the Supreme Court in 1978 affirmed the rationality of such outrage – at the idea of American citizens being policed by aliens who have entered the country unlawfully, which George Fishman, senior legal fellow at the Center, discusses in his analysis. He specifies the illegal aliens who would be eligible to become police officers and carry firearms under the new law, and the discrepancies between the Illinois law and the DACA rule.

Illinois Gov. Pritzker has asserted that only those with work authorization are eligible for benefits under the new legislation, but as Fishman explains, “not every DACA beneficiary is authorized to work under federal law…. But the legislation you signed authorizes the employment of DACA beneficiaries as deputy sheriffs regardless of whether they have received employment authorization,” which is unlawful under the Immigration and Nationality Act.