Permission Would Bolster Recruitment, Diversity

Lawful permanent residents, or LPRs, would help police departments and sheriff’s offices overcome recruitment challenges and boost community policing efforts.

That’s the conclusion of a paper posted today, “Filling the Ranks: Why Lawful Permanent Residents Should Qualify for Law Enforcement Positions.”

Many departments would like to hire LPRs but are constrained by state or local laws or policies. In “Filling the Ranks,” local law enforcement leaders make the case for lifting such restrictions.

“It’s a big world out there and the more people we have who can speak another language, or have been out in the world, the better,” Sheriff Paul Fitzgerald of the Story County (Iowa) Sheriff’s Office says in the paper.

“U.S. citizenship has no bearing on someone’s ability to be a good police officer or not,” Police Chief Thomas Manger of Montgomery County, Maryland, says in the paper.

“Filling the Ranks” is posted on the newly relaunched website of the Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force, which includes 80 police chiefs, sheriffs and law enforcement leaders from across the country, from rural counties to major cities.