This story in the New York Post highlights one of the many internal inconsistencies in the law. Of course, in a country with as many laws ours, conflict is inevitable.
I’ve written before about the exception in federal law that allows illegal aliens, drug users, felons, fugitives, etc. to possess firearms. (https://lnkd.in/eARUZJRP.) They just have to do it on behalf of the government.
In fact, the only federal prohibitor that isn’t excepted for government service is having a conviction for a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.
In this case, a person who unlawfully remained in the United States attempted to purchase a firearm, he said, for his employment as a police officer in Maine.
(I explained the difference between illegal and unlawful in this post about a man who was definitely not hunting with his guns. https://lnkd.in/gKVXNT3A)
There’s a lot of gray here. (And the law is all about gray: https://lnkd.in/d27e56k2.)
Although the law allows him to possess a firearm as a police officer even while unlawfully in the country, being in the country unlawfully is still, well, unlawful.
Also, the exception would only apply while he was acting on behalf of the government and here it appears what he was attempting to do fell outside the agency’s policy. The legal exception would not protect him purchasing or carrying a firearm in his personal capacity. (Of course, depending on an agency’s policy, this is sometimes gray as well. In many places, police are still blanketed with authority even when off duty.)
There is also the dispute about when his lawful status expired. For its part, the agency that employed this alien as a police officer said that it attempted to verify his status and eligibility to work in the United States, and the government gave it bad information.
Whatever the case, it seems his days as a police officer are over.