OLYMPIA, WA – The House Committee on Community Safety voted to advance a bill that would allow foreign nationals to become law enforcement officers and deputy prosecutors, as well as firefighters.

While proponents of Senate Bill 5068 say expanding job eligibility is necessary to address unfilled roles, critics on both the committee and people testifying warn it could have enormous negative consequences.

“I think for non-citizenship – I just can’t go there,” Rep. Brian Burnett, R-Wenatchee, told Community Safety Chair Roger Goodman, D-Kirkland, prior to the committee’s Feb. 23 vote. “I have serious concerns on what that does.”

Introduced last session, SB 5068 unanimously cleared the state Senate before stalling in the House and then returned to its original chamber. This session, the bill was revived and then once more cleared the Senate, but this time with a divided vote of 30 in favor, 19 opposed.

Under the bill, foreign nationals authorized to work in the United States would be able to apply for law enforcement officer, firefighter and county prosecutor positions. Prior to its passage in Community Safety, the bill was amended to include several provisions. One of them protects public agencies from state discrimination laws for rejecting an applicant due to the limitations of their work eligibility in the country.

Another provision tasks agencies with developing written policies regarding authorization for foreign nationals to carry firearms while on duty.

Speaking in favor of the bill before its Feb. 23 vote, Goodman said “this bill is actually a very important recruitment tool…to be able to hire those who are legally authorized to work in the United States. Our police agencies and other first responders really are looking for qualified folks, and that could include others who are legally authorized to work in the United States.”

However, Burnett warned that allowing foreign nationals to apply for jobs would potentially put public agencies at risk of unknowingly hiring someone with “extremist connections.”

“That is a reality of the world we live in,” he said. “Just look around at what’s going on in the world.”

One individual testifying during the bill’s Feb. 18 public hearing took a different approach regarding the bill’s perceived faults. Software developer Stephen Schutt told the committee that the bill is “an anti-worker provision” that would allow public agencies to hire foreign nationals at lower wages than U.S. citizens, a practice he argued has been rampant among tech companies such as Google.

“It’s a way for them to, like you say,  there’s the shortage of workers,  the sources of law enforcement, police officers,” he said. “It’s actually not true. You need to raise wages. We have constant complaints about affordability in this state, and it is because we’re suppressing wages in the tech industry. The idea that this is not going to have an effect on the workers that are here is completely false.”