In California and Illinois Lawbreakers Can Now Be Law Enforcers

Across the U.S., the rights and privileges of citizenship are continuously being diluted by the open borders lobby in state legislatures. Drivers’ licenses for illegal aliens are only the beginning, with several states allowing illegal aliens to be admitted to the bar and practice law despite their presence itself being illegal. Some can now make arrests too.

As FAIR has consistently warned, these concessions undermine our immigration laws, and with each incremental step, erode all distinctions between citizens and those who flout our laws. Sanctuary states, California and Illinois, have recently passed legislation removing citizenship requirements for police officers, granting illegal aliens and other foreign citizens in the U.S. the authority to enforce American laws against citizens.

Both states’ bills remove the requirement that law enforcement officers be American citizens or lawful permanent residents (green card holders). Instead, California and Illinois only require prospective officers to have a federal employment authorization document or EAD. Nancy Skinner, the California State Senator who authored her state’s legislation, stated that her bill “in no way applies to undocumented workers”, which is simply a lie.

A huge and growing population of illegal aliens in the U.S. do hold EADs. Getting one is in fact a major goal of many economic migrants who file bogus asylum claims simply to receive work authorization and send money home. Illegal aliens who apply for asylum receive employment authorization while their cases wind their way through the courts, often for many years. Other groups, like Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, also receive EADs while remaining illegal aliens.

Due to the federal government’s unrestrained issuance of EADs, many illegal aliens are now eligible to become law enforcement in Illinois and California,  even though work authorization is in no way an indicator of legal status. The governments of California and Illinois both refuse to cooperate with federal immigration laws but are happy to take advantage of lax Biden administration policies when they benefit illegal aliens.

Thanks to the Biden administration’s wholesale handouts of immigration parole, which often includes work authorization, Afghan and Ukrainian illegal aliens arriving directly from their countries’ war zones can begin new careers enforcing American laws on the streets of Chicago or San Francisco. Washington State has not moved to drop citizenship requirements for law enforcement officers, but they have managed to come up with an equally harebrained proposal to remove English-language requirements. If that idea were to catch on, the people enforcing laws might not even need to be able to read them.

American democracy is founded on the principle of self-governance.  This framework is backed by the 1978 Supreme Court decision in Foley v. Connelie, holding that states have a “historical power to exclude aliens from participation in…democratic political institutions” because institutions like the law are basic functions of a government made up of citizens. Federal law enforcement has a universal citizenship requirement, and the vast majority of states also impose one because they recognize the necessity of officers belonging to the society whose laws they enforce.

For sanctuary states, however, vesting lawbreakers with the power to be law enforcers is just the latest frontier in the ceaseless quest to remove every distinction between citizenship and illegal residency. Newly arrived illegal aliens are eligible for a huge number of social programs once reserved for Americans, and many state legislatures seem intent on making their lives as easy as possible while costing taxpayers billions. Letting foreigners enforce American law on American soil might finally be a step too far, but it’s simply a natural consequence of the open-borders lobby’s slippery slope of cheapening American citizens. The leap from a driver’s license to a badge and gun isn’t quite as far-fetched as it may have seemed. In California and Illinois, it is a reality.