(Newsworthy.news) – A liberal city in Colorado is toying with the idea of permitting immigrants to serve as public safety officials with a work authorization in place of American citizenship.
A proposal from Jamie Torres and Amanda Sandoval, the president of the city council and a councilmember respectively, was made for the city of Denver, Colorado on February 12. The suggested change would amend the language in Denver’s charter, omitting the requirement that police officers and firefighters in the city be citizens of the United States.
In order to be enacted, the proposal would need to be introduced as a bill, which could occur as early as April 2024. Amending the language in the charter would require the additional step of being approved as a ballot initiative and receiving majority support from voters. If given approval for a vote, the charter amendment could appear on the November 2024 ballot.
The suggestion has already received letters of support from both the chief of police and the fire chief in Denver. According to a previous lawsuit, the city’s Sheriff Department is currently allowed to employ migrants. The federal case, which reached a settlement in 2016, faulted the law enforcement agency with discriminating against non-citizens of the United States who had been granted work authorizations.
The proposal to omit the citizenship requirement for public safety officials comes amid an ongoing immigration crisis in major American cities. Denver is one of several destinations for thousands of illegal immigrants who have been flooding into the United States in recent months.
Over 40,000 of these migrants have appeared in Denver alone, leaving the city to begin turning some away. Currently, Denver is working to remove roughly 800 families of immigrants who are squeezing into overflowing housing.
The onslaught of migrants has also posed a significant financial burden and sparked the city to pay for resources for the illegal immigrants by taking money from other parts of the budget including the health and police departments.
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