The Strange Case of the Illegal Alien Cop

Greater Chicago has become the latest focus of ICE enforcement efforts, triggering a heated backlash from Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D), including threats by the governor to prosecute immigration officers. Now, DHS is claiming ICE has arrested “an illegal alien from Montenegro, who was working as a sworn police officer with the Hanover Park Police Department in sanctuary state Illinois.” There’s a lot yet unknown about this case, but if that’s true, how could it have happened? 

A Quick Recap

I recently detailed ICE’s Illinois operations under Trump II, but here’s a quick recap.

Immediately after the November 2024 elections, Gov. Pritzker vowed to oppose the president-elect’s immigration policies, telling MSNBC’s Joy Reid he was “going to do everything [he could] to protect our undocumented immigrants”. 

The day after Trump was sworn in, Pritzker complained the new administration wasn’t sharing its ICE enforcement plans, while also arguing that “undocumented people who are law-abiding and holding down jobs shouldn’t be arrested just because they’re undocumented.”

It turns out Chicago was one of Trump’s first targets for immigration enforcement, as 10 “teams of about 10 federal agents apiece fanned out across the city” on January 27, making around 100 arrests.

Thereafter, in his February “State of the State” address, the governor compared the United States under Trump II to Germany in the weeks following the February 1933 Reichstag fire, when Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist German Workers’ (“Nazi”) Party were consolidating their hold on power. 

Specifically, he asked: 

What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities — once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends — After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face — what comes next? [Emphasis added.]

“Operation Midway Blitz”

The president and his border czar, Tom Homan, were either undeterred or nonplussed by the accusations in the governor’s February speech, because in early September DHS launched a massive ICE immigration enforcement effort, “Operation Midway Blitz”. 

According to the department, the operation’s target is “criminal illegal aliens who flocked to Chicago and Illinois because they knew Governor Pritzker and his sanctuary policies would protect them and allow them to roam free on American streets”.

By mid-October, more than 1,500 aliens had been arrested in Illinois and its environs in the course of that operation, but Midway Blitz has also triggered protests (some violent), primarily (though far from exclusively) at an ICE processing facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview.

“In Governor J.B. Pritzker’s Illinois, Illegal Alien Is Working as a Sworn Police Office[r]”

Which brings me to an October 16 DHS press release, headlined “In Governor J.B. Pritzker’s Illinois, Illegal Alien Is Working as a Sworn Police Office[r] with Badge, Gun, and a Pension”.

(I added the bracketed “r” — apparently DHS was so eager to get the story out there that it didn’t have time to spellcheck the header.)

The press release (astonishingly) begins: 

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) today announced the arrest of Radule Bojovic, an illegal alien from Montenegro, who was working as a sworn police officer with the Hanover Park Police Department in sanctuary state Illinois. Radule Bojovic was encountered during a targeted enforcement action as part of Operation Midway Blitz.

Read deeper and the department claims that Bojovic came to this country on a B-2 nonimmigrant tourist visa, which he overstayed on March 31, 2015 — more than a decade ago — and has remained here illegally ever since. 

It doesn’t appear he was ever placed into removal proceedings, changed or adjusted his status, or received employment authorization, but DHS claims that he nonetheless managed to be sworn in as an officer with the Hanover Park Police Department in late August, at a starting salary of nearly $79,000.

The Strange Laws Governing Weapons Possession 

The tagline on that press release states, “It is a felony for an illegal alien to possess a firearm”, and that’s true, but with an important exception. 

Under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5)(A), it’s unlawful for an alien “illegally or unlawfully in the United States” to “possess . . . any firearm or ammunition”, and by regulation, that includes “a nonimmigrant . . . whose authorized period of stay has expired or who has violated the terms of the nonimmigrant category in which he or she was admitted”.

A separate provision of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, section 925(a)(1), however, contains an exception to section 922(g)(5)(A) for “possession . . . of any firearm . . . issued for the use of. . . any State or any department, agency, or political subdivision thereof”.

That’s a strange exception, given Title 18 both criminalizes possession of firearms by certain classes of individuals and then permits members of those same classes to possess firearms, but only when employed in one of the few occupations that legally authorizes them to use firearms against others (read: “shoot people in the line of duty”). 

That exception likely explains why in ICE’s own October 16 press release on the case, headlined “ICE arrests illegal alien serving as a local police officer in Suburban Chicago”, the agency states:

Upon arrest, Bojovic provided his employee identification card, confirming he is a police officer with the Hanover Park Police Department. Bojovic also admitted that he had no weapons on his person because he’s only authorized to carry his firearm while on duty. [Emphasis added.] 

Perhaps Bojovic is one of the “undocumented people who are law-abiding and holding down jobs” that Pritzker referred to in January, but it’s curious the governor omitted the compound adjective “law-enforcing”, too.

That said, while I have handled plenty of cases involving aliens with section 922(g)(5)(A) convictions, I am not familiar with all the sundry permutations of the 925(a)(1) exception, so don’t try any of this yourself. 

If True, How Did Bojovic Get Hired? 

Logically, lawyers in Hanover Park or the Illinois government researched this issue in Bojovic’s case, which is why he was so meticulous about not carrying his service weapon off-duty, or perhaps he is one of those cops who immerses himself in studying the full panoply of federal criminal offenses in his off hours.

If it’s the former, and DHS and ICE’s contentions about Bojovic’s immigration status are correct, it means whoever hired him as a police officer was aware of his illegal status and let him to join the force anyway. 

And if that’s true, that someone, and likely others, are in trouble. 

That’s because section 274A(a)(1)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) makes it unlawful “to hire . . . for employment in the United States an alien knowing the alien is an unauthorized alien”. 

That law applies to state and local governments, and the federal government, too.

A violation is a civil offense subject to a fine of between $250 and $2,000, and in the case of a “pattern or practice of” such violations, a crime subject to a fine of up to $3,000, not more than six months imprisonment, or both.

If it’s the latter, and Bojovic alone knew about his unlawful status, it still raises the question of how he got the job. 

Section 274A(a)(1)(B)(i) of the INA requires employers to verify their employees’ work authorization by complying with the “employment verification system” in subsection (b) of that provision. 

In most cases, employers comply with that system by completing an I-9, the “Employment Eligibility Verification” form. 

If you have been legally hired for a job in this country since 1986, you’re likely familiar with Form I-9, because every employer (by regulation) must complete one for every employee within three business days of hire. 

Under that regulation (instructions are also on the form), employers must ensure new hires attest on the Form I-9 to their employment authorization status (U.S. citizen or national; “lawful permanent resident” (LPR); or “alien authorized to work”) and must also “physically examine. . . the documentation presented by the individual establishing identity and employment authorization”.

Most new employees present a driver’s license and Social Security card during the I-9 process, though LPRs often show a green card (Form I-551) and employment authorized aliens their Form I-766, “employment authorization document” (EAD).

If DHS and ICE are both correct, however, Bojovic didn’t have an EAD, or a green card, and he shouldn’t have had a Social Security card, either. 

“Generally,” according to the Social Security Administration website, “only noncitizens authorized to work in the United States by [DHS] can get” a Social Security number (SSN) and card.

That said, aliens who aren’t authorized to work can also receive an SSN if they can prove they need it for “a valid nonwork reason”, such as to receive “a federally funded benefit” or “to satisfy a state or local law that requires [them] to have one to receive public assistance”. 

Seriously, that’s what it says, but next check out the following, also on the Social Security Administration website: 

A business or government agency may ask you for an SSN. If you are not authorized to work in the United States, ask if they can identify you in some other way. In most cases, you’ll be able to get the service or license you need without an SSN. 

Maybe the folks who take 6.2 percent of my income can tell me how to open a marijuana dispensary next. 

If Bojovic did convince the Social Security administration he had a valid nonwork reason for an SSN, his card should have been issued with one of two restrictions on its face: “VALID FOR WORK ONLY WITH DHS AUTHORIZATION”; or “NOT VALID FOR EMPLOYMENT”. 

As I recently explained in the context of a different case involving a different alien also given a local government position of public trust, however, “it’s not hard to get a fake Social Security card without such a restriction illegally, and if the Social Security number is your own, a check of that number on a bogus document would not reveal much.” 

Who Knew What, and When Did They Know It?

At this point, we don’t know much about Radule Bojovic, who “was working as a sworn police officer with the Hanover Park Police Department in sanctuary state Illinois” even though DHS claims he’s “an illegal alien from Montenegro”. Either ICE has its facts wrong or somebody (and maybe many somebodys) in the Land of Lincoln is in a lot of trouble.