Finding Work

[Matt_1979 Forum Member Find all posts View Profile Close Matt_1979]

Hello All,

Sorry I have looked and cannot find an answer to my question so I thought I'd give it a whirl on here !!

I'm a British Citizen currently working for the Police in the UK a role I have held for some 13 years.

Myself and my Partner, who is soon to become a fully qualified Primary School Teacher, are interested in moving to America. If it were to happen I would defiantly be looking at trying to get a Civilian Post with the US Police.

I've looked at various Police websites but i seems some do not recruit Civilians directly....

I wondered if anyone could point me in the direction of Police Departments that are regularly looking for Civilian members of staff ?

I hope this all makes sense and someone out there can help...........finger crossed.

Cheers

[L-1 Find all posts View Profile Close L-1]

Generally speaking, if a position is full time and does not require arrest powers, many law enforcement agencies fill it with a civilian because doing so is cheaper than using a police officer.

California agencies employ tons of civilian staff. Many agencies have civilian positions known as Community Service Officers or Public Safety Officers who are used for parking enforcement, animal control, traffic accident investigation, etc. In very large agencies, civilian employees perform technical investigations such as questioned documents examiner, intelligence analyst, crime scene investigator, etc. As an example, here is an exam announcement for a civilian crime scene investigator with the State of California. http://jobs.spb.ca.gov/openxrd.cfm?exc=6JUAU

As long as you have a green card and a clean background, you should have no problem finding a job.

[Matt_1979 Forum Member Find all posts View Profile Close Matt_1979]

Thanks for the advice.

To be honest I have no ties in the US and no Green Card so I'll have to look at finding a Department that would be willing to apply for the necessary Visa's etc.....

I'm very much guessing thats going to be easier said than done !!!

[just joe Forum Member Find all posts View Profile Close just joe]

I think I just read that you don't have to be a US citizen to apply for the New Orleans PD. I would say all major municipalities have a lot of civilain employees. You probably need to check the human resources dept. or jobs page of the local city website instead of the local PD's website.

[thomas26 Forum Member Find all posts View Profile Close thomas26]

I think I just read that you don't have to be a US citizen to apply for the New Orleans PD.

Nope. You have to be us citizen.
The answer on my request, some weeks ago, was:

Thank you for your interest with the New Orleans Police Department. You must be a US citizen in order to apply with the Department of Civil Service. After fulfilling that condition, feel free to contact us to begin the process of becoming an officer.

I started requesting over 60 PD's all over the country.
None will help you get any visa!
Most required citizenship.

[Matt_1979 Forum Member Find all posts View Profile Close Matt_1979]

Tom,

Did you have any luck.....

[TopRad Retired Jarhead Find all posts View Profile Close TopRad]

I think you're going to find (already have) that it will be very difficult to find an agency that would sponsor a foreigner (no disrespect intended) when there is a huge pool of qualified people here on our own soil.

Most agencies wouldn't want to tackle the hassle, especially in these days of immigration reform. There's alot of open hostility here when an alien is given a (desireable) job over a citizen. If you wanted to do day labor stuff, you'd probably have no problem, but working in law enforcement, which basically means working for a city, county, state or federal government entity, would most likely require you to have all the checks in the block, one of which is US citizenship. I'm sure there are agencies out there that will hire civilians who don't have citizenship, and your best chance will be to look at the larger agencies in the larger cities (Los Angeles, New York, etc.) or counties. Then again, those larger cities are the ones with the most immigrants, so you'd still be competing for the jobs.

Good luck.