New laws remove obstacles for DACA recipients who want to become police officers

Police departments across the country have been struggling to recruit and retain officers over the past several years.

The Police Executive Research Forum, a law enforcement policy group, has attributed the decrease in staffing to “extreme stresses” caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and a decline in police officers’ morale, as well as protests and demonstrations following the murder of George Floyd in 2020 by Minneapolis police, among other issues. But others have attributed the decrease to calls for accountability and police reform spurred by Floyd’s murder, and to officers leaving for higher paying jobs in the private sector.