Nevada is considering a bill that would allow noncitizens who live in the state and pass a background check to serve as police officers amid staffing shortages.
Assembly Bill 30, sponsored by the Assembly Committee on Government Affairs, will be considered during the next session of the Nevada Assembly.
If approved and signed by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, a former sheriff, the bill would make an estimated 140,000 green card holders and up to 15,000 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients in the state eligible for join the city police force.
AB 30 was filed in November on behalf of the city of North Las Vegas, which became the first city in the state to allow non-citizens to enroll in its Young Scout program for young people interested in pursuing a career in the law enforcement, according to local affiliate. FOX5.
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Reportedly, Assembly Bill 30 arose out of a desire to expand Nevada’s law enforcement recruiting pool.
(Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Facebook)
FOX5 noted that the ranks of participants in the Young Scouts program have grown since it was opened to non-citizens.
“There is a crisis right now on a national level,” Jared Luke, who serves as the city’s director of government affairs and economic development, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “It’s not just a Nevada thing, it’s not just a North Las Vegas thing, where the number of recruits for police officers and police departments nationally has declined.”
Luke explained to the outlet that the bill stemmed from a desire to expand the law enforcement recruiting pool, noting that potential officers would still be subject to physical standards and rigorous background checks.
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If signed by Nevada’s Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, a former sheriff, Assembly Bill 30 would allow non-citizens of the state to become police officers.
(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
“That’s a great pool of potentially qualified candidates who want to serve in the community, where they live, and who want a better community,” Luke said. “But they’re prohibited from doing so even though they legally have the authority to work in the United States, so that’s really the genesis of AB 30.”
“All we’re doing is saying we’d like the state to recognize that this is an additional group to draw from,” he added.
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Assembly Bill 30 was introduced on behalf of the City of North Las Vegas last November.
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Luke noted that the proposed legislation follows in the footsteps of a 2015 bill that allowed non-citizens to become public school teachers amid a similar decline in staffing in that profession.
“When we started looking at what the state had done in 2015 for teachers, we said why don’t we do the same for the police?” Lucas said.
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Similar legislation has already been passed in neighboring Utah and California.
