Minneapolis, Minnesota, has sworn in its first police officer who is not a U.S. citizen, according to reports.
The Minnesota Police Dept. has reported that Lesly Vera, a native of Somalia, was sworn in on Thursday as the department’s first non-citizen officer.
Vera was seen at the swearing-in ceremony wearing a hijab over her head as she took the oath of office and received her badge.
Vera moved to Minneapolis with her parents from their arrival point in Mexico when she was four. She is a legal resident alien and authorized to work, but is not a U.S. citizen.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara defended the idea of giving police powers to a non-citizen.
“There may be people who question it, but that’s completely ridiculous. There’s, like I mentioned, there is a history in this country of people immediately on arrival to the country, enlisting in the military and serving,” O’Hara told KSTP-TV. “Somebody like [Officer Vera], who has been here essentially her entire life, absolutely is entitled to protect her community in the same way that anyone else here has, and we’re honored to have her.”
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“Our 23 new officers include the first Somali-American woman to join the department and the first permanent resident. A police service that looks like our residents is better able to serve our residents, and I couldn’t be more proud of the department we’re building under Chief O’Hara,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) said Friday on Facebook.
“It’s moving. It’s emotional. I mean, I talked about the hope in the room, from a personal standpoint as mayor of the city, it gives me a lot of hope. Our police department is looking more and more like the communities that we are charged with protecting and serving,” Frey added in a KTSP interview.
The Somali migrant community in Minneapolis is the largest in the United States and the city has been a target of Somali migration since the 1990s. Somalis were drawn to the city for its generous welfare programs and the chance to live as ex-pats among their own countrymen, but the community has recently been rocked by a massive fraud case entailing tens of millions in stolen Medicaid funding connected to a fake charity called Feeding Our Future run by leading local Somali residents.
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The door was opened for Vera last year when the Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) adopted new rules that allowed state law enforcement agencies to elevate non-citizens to the role of police officer. The citizenship requirement was dropped and applicants now only need to be a legal resident and cleared to work in the U.S. to be handed a gun and badge.
Minnesota is not the only state working to allow non-citizens to become police officers. California, Colorado, and Illinois are also crafting legislation to give non-citizens police powers.
Minneapolis was rocked in 2017 when police officer and Somali-native Mohamed Noor shot and killed an Australian woman while responding to a 911 call. Officer Noor was eventually convicted of third-degree murder and manslaughter, though the state Supreme court later vacated the third-degree conviction. Ultimately, Noor was sentenced to 57 months for murdering the woman.
The city received widespread criticism over the move on social media. X chief Elon Musk, for one, was disturbed by the news that a non-citizen was given powers to detain, arrest, and jail citizens.
Musk likened the situation to the fall of the Roman Empire, adding that “the Roman Army also increasingly relied on non-citizens.”
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