I think the real questions is whether even green cards are trustworthy enough in all cases, or if there is a credible program to ensure it is. Too many politicos have twisted common sense into a pretzel, and if a county was sued because they did not hire Achmed with his green card (which by the way is no guarantee of anything any more, I heard a report of several thousand that the Obamanation allowed to go "missing") by the Feds, they have to spend a butt ton of money defending it, and still get hammered by the morons. The problem is several layers deep.

I would agree, you cannot have a law breaker who is a law enforcer, it is completely contradictory. You could have a program for green card holders, but the whole green card program was to allow people with special skills to work in the country, I am not sure we have a shortage of candidates, if the justice system only supported them. When a person commits murder and get a reduced sentence, it kinda eliminates the incentive to do the job.

That is truth, and applies across the board to all positions. I do interviews for Intel and we use canned questions "to be fair" and are not allowed to probe. Many people fail even on canned questions like "Tell me about a time when..." and they stare at you. Vetting a police candidate is a hundred times worse, because you need to know how they react to stress and make decisions. I wouldn't rule out the citizenship thing arbitrarily, I would use it as a qualifier, and if you don't have it, then have a program to ensure you get it.

Yes they can. the requirement is apparently having a right to work in the US.
Traditionally, serving in the military was a short cut to getting citizenship. Wait tines reduced etc. I don't have a problem with that, or didn't. Now with ISIS and the other terror groups looking for insiders, not sure I still believe in it as much as I did.

Apparently so, according to jbrenner here:
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
in about 10 states. But again, for the fifth time only after an extensive background investigation.

Are you telling us that noncitizens, with say a Green Card, can become a police officer policing our cities?

See my comments to FosterJ717 above (https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...) and to NickUris below (https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...) and throughout.

Non-citizens have given their lives for this country serving in the military. Historically, non-citizens have been police officers because we are a nation of immigrants. It is only with the rise of a native-born citizenry that non-citizens were finally outnumbered, allowing citizenship to be made a requirement.

No one is asking that criminals be given badges and guns.

Law enforcement is not being turned over to law breakers. Whether someone is a citizen or not is not definitive. Every police department has a broad and deep vetting process. The background investigation is always the best possible. And, yes, bad cops still exist. So far, the vast majority of the bad ones have been native born American citizens.

A non-citizen can be a good cop; a citizen can be a bad cop. My point is that there is no "philosopher's stone" to test for good cops versus bad ones. You can do all the background checks you want - and we do - but essentially it comes down to individuals.

I assume that you are speaking of legal migrants getting jobs in law enforcement as opposed to illegal aliens. After all, there are some in this country who want the illegal aliens to be able to get jobs in law enforcement. Let's be clear about what we are discussing here! Legal immigrants or illegal aliens.....there is still a world of difference isn't there?

Has this turned into a stupid country or what?! Imagine, law enforcement turned over to law breakers. Are the inmates really running the asylums or is it just my imagination?

Mike, different set of circumstances. Police were not quite as subject to the harrasment they get today, nor the attempts to kill them. Also, the start of the industrial revolution opened up many more opportunities than there were people to fill, as we were an agrarian econommy. There is a different set of facotrs today, requireing a lot more training, reliability and proof of competency. Does that rule out an immigrant? No. But before I would open the door wide, I would have a decent vetting program in place, and safeguards. Even the current crop of police are not always reliable, as shown by your examples, and we do have as many homegrown idiots as imported. But there needs to be some place where a minimum security standard can be placed.

Mike, that does not connect the logic of citizen requirements. All it says is that New Orleans probably hired minority people and women to meet a fed quota, and looked the other way when they were identified as defective. Maybe their HR told them they had to hire them and complete their training. It does not negate a requirement for citizenship. The real issue is that if you allow anyone with a work visa to be a cop, then all the departments will be driven by politicians to hire the cheapest people they can. I believe citizenship is a valid job requirement for the task. That does not mean they could not have an apprentice program to train green card and when they get their citizenship, be made full fledged police, or some such. BTW, note the dates, these were during another dumbocraps reign, and, as I remember his AG was not known for her outstanding support of the law.

You know, it's about time to replace our Federal Justice Department. If it was done by law, then we need to change a law. Or maybe we should just issue a gun to everyone crossing the border into our country. I just can't image a noncitizen cop carrying a gun in my city. Hopefully a real American president will soon pardon Denver Sheriff's Department and send them a refund.

If the sheriff had any balls he'd tell the justice department lawyers to go eF themselves.

He's the goddamned sheriff! He's the face of law enforcement in the county. SMH asking WTF?

Most mercenaries are a diverse lot. Why not just hire them. They are pre-trained and many of them would like to stay in one place instead of traveling all over to some stinky hell-holes. You say that most of them are sadistic killers?
Hmmm. Well....perhaps...nah.
It would tend to clean things up, but then.....

Obamadable progressive fascism is still hard at work.
January 20, 2017, can't get here fast enough.

Roughly 40 of the 50 states have laws that require police to be citizens. Those getting the Obama DOJ fines for not hiring non-citizens are in the states that have no such laws. Consequently, this is a tax on citizens in Democrat states. I won't cry over the unintended consequence of political correctness in this case.

These cops were citizens:
New Orleans

MARCH 4, 1995
Officer kills civilians and former partner
On this night, Officer Antoinette Frank eats at a Vietnamese restaurant where she had once done private security detail work. Hours later, she returns with civilian Rogers LaCaze to rob the establishment. Frank and LaCaze shoot and kill Frank's former partner, Officer Ronald Williams, who is working security at the restaurant, and several members of the Vu family, the restaurant's owners.
Teenager Chau Vu survives by hiding in a cooler during the robbery. When the call goes out that there's a shooting, Frank returns to the restaurant supposedly to help in the investigation. Chau Vu identifies her as the shooter, and Frank is arrested, tried and convicted of first-degree murder. Sentenced to death in September 1995, she remains on death row. LaCaze is also convicted of murder and sentenced to death row.
Disturbing details later emerge about Frank: She had failed two psychological exams before being admitted to the police academy; a supervisor recommended she return to the academy for more training, and she had stolen the gun used in the murders from the NOPD evidence room.

New Orleans --
OCTOBER 13, 1994
Officer Len Davis caught on tape ordering a hit on a civilian
New Orleans resident Kim Marie Groves witnesses Officer Davis beating up a neighborhood teenager and files a formal complaint with the police. Within hours, a colleague tells Davis about Groves' allegations. The next night Groves is shot dead in front of her house. Davis had planned her hit -- it was inadvertently recorded by federal officials who are investigating a cocaine ring involving Davis.
Paradoxically, Davis had a reputation for being both roguish and a good cop: Between 1987 and 1992, he received 20 complaints and was suspended six times. He was also awarded the NOPD's second highest honor, the Medal of Merit, in 1993. "He was Robocop to some people," historian Leonard Moore tells FRONTLINE. "But then he was, I would say, Officer Friendly to other people."

Tried and sentenced to death for Groves' murder, Davis remains on death row. He is one of nine officers later indicted on federal weapons and drug charges for their participation in the cocaine ring; a half dozen, including Davis, are convicted.

If non-citizens were never cops, we would not have had police in the first place. Do you think they learned that Irish brogue at the police academy? We are a nation of immigrants. Public service is one way to demonstrate your willingness and ability to become a citizen.

The Fox News presentation is an example of opinion inserted as news. (Being a quote from a USA Today story, it is just scissors-and-paste journalism, not actual reporting.)

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, told USA Today last year that while he supports the idea of opening up hiring at police departments to non-citizens who are in the U.S. legally, he worried about security risks of police officers who have only work permits.
"We're handing over a gun and a badge to somebody whose background we don't really know a lot about," Krikorian said.

That is simply xenophobia. No police department hires anyone without a background investigation. I have worked as a technical writer for public safety forces and gone through background investigations to get those jobs. And I worked with non-citizens who went through the same process. And I saw one of my native-born citizen colleagues removed when their background check came back negative.

In fact, I would say that the overwhelming number of police officers who were arrested for corruption have been citizens who passed extensive background investigations before being accepted, hired, and trained. (See the discussion here on Recidivism.)

The $10K fine was just a slap on the wrist to get their attention.

(The other was Eugene, Oregon, in 2015 here:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa...

"Chicago and Hawaii police departments accept job applicants who have a work permit, according to USA Today."
Ahem, two of the most socialist governments in the nation and the last choices to emulate.