Politics

State detective resigns after she discovers she’s an illegal immigrant

Christopher Bedford Former Editor in Chief, The Daily Caller News Foundation
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A state police detective in Arizona had to resign this week after a Department of State investigation discovered that she was an illegal immigrant.

Brought to the United States at a young age, former Det. Carmen Figueroa found out she was actually born in Sinaloa, Mexico while the federal government was investigating a passport application from her brother, who serves in the U.S. military. Figueroa, a 13-year veteran of the Arizona Department of Public Safety, was apparently unaware of the truth, and only confirmed it after confronting her mother.

In Arizona, police officers are legally required to be U.S. citizens. So if Figueroa didn’t resign, she would have been fired.

A spokesman for the department told The Daily Mail that Figueroa “had an exemplary record,” so she won’t face criminal prosecution for the likely unintentional deception, which included a fake Social Security card and other documents.

“Figueroa worked in southern Arizona and was with the department for 10 years, most of that time as a Tucson-based Highway Patrol officer,” AP reports. She became a detective in 2010.

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