Homeland Security’s deportation agency on Thursday said it arrested a Montenegro man who is in the country illegally but was sworn in this past summer as a police officer in the Chicago suburbs.
Radule Bojovic entered the U.S. on a temporary visitor’s visa and was supposed to leave in 2015 but overstayed, making him a long-time illegal immigrant, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
He was hired by the police department in Hanover Park despite that status.
ICE said it arrested Mr. Bojovic on Wednesday as part of its current immigration enforcement surge in Illinois.
The agency said he didn’t have his department-issued weapon on him at the time because he wasn’t allowed to carry it while off duty.
“This is the second known instance in recent months of a local police department hiring an illegal alien and unlawfully issuing him a firearm while on duty in violation of federal law,” said Sam Olson, director of ICE’s deportation office in Chicago.
Hanover Park had announced Mr. Bojovic’s graduation from the police academy in August, saying he was about to start 15 weeks of field training.
Mr. Olson said federal law prohibits illegal immigrants from possessing weapons, though some local departments argue that the law lets some migrants who have a tentative amnesty from deportation, such as DACA recipients, carry weapons while on the job.
In 2023, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat and leading sanctuary policy defender, signed a law authorizing DACA recipients to become law enforcement officers.
The Hanover Park Police Department said in a statement that Mr. Bojovic had a legal work authorization at the time he was hired in January and there has been no notice that it was revoked.
He also went through a full background check.
“The bottom line is that all information we received from the federal government indicated that Officer Bojovic is legally authorized to work in the United States as a police officer,” the department said. “Clearly, without that authorization, the village would not have hired him.”
The department also said it determined he was allowed to carry a gun “while on duty” under a 2024 policy issued by the Biden Justice Department that focuses on DACA recipients.
Under that policy, the Biden administration said federal law allows for exceptions to the ban on illegal immigrants possessing guns if they are issued as “part of their official law enforcement officer duties.”
The department said the officer is now on administrative leave and will be brought back to duty if he is deemed legally able to work.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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