The Associated Press reported on Thursday that an Arizona police detective and 10-year veteran of the Tucson Highway Patrol was forced to resign on Monday after it was discovered that she was living in the United States illegally. Department of Public Safety spokesman Bart Graves told the AP that 42-year-old Carmen Figueroa had always been told by her family that she was born in the United States, though in reality she was born in Sinaloa, Mexico. Police officers must be US citizens under Arizona law.
The question of Figueroa's legal status first came up when her brother, a member of the Air Force, applied for a passport and saw his case flagged by the State Department. On Sept. 4th, when the Department of Public Safety learned Figueroa may not have had residency status, she was placed on paid administrative leave while an investigation was carried out by the department into the matter. Graves said that the investigation found that Figueroa "should be terminated for fraud, misrepresentation for securing employment, and incompetency".
According to the Arizona Republic, when Figueroa was applying for the position with the DPS in 2003, she had produced documents which had seemed legitimate, including a Social Security card, a birth certificate and high school diploma. She was later promoted to detective and served as the spokesperson in Tucson for the organization for several years. Graves said that the DPS believed that despite the possibility that Figueroa could have used fake documents, she was probably under the impression that she was born in the US and thus was a US citizen. "We believe the affidavit and information she gave us at the time. And, she was under the impression that she herself was an American citizen," Graves told local station KVOA.
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