No one is above the law – certainly not those charged with enforcing it.

It’s why Denver sets high standards of conduct for its police and, by and large, its officers meet and exceed those standards. Which means the men and women in blue cannot be lawbreakers.

A couple of Denver City Council members now want to turn that timeless wisdom upside down.

Denver City Council President Jamie Torres and City Council member Amanda Sandoval are proposing to let non-U.S. citizens join the ranks of the city’s police and firefighters. It could include even those noncitizens who had entered the country illegally.

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The about-face in long-standing policy would mean changing the city’s charter, which requires police and firefighters to be U.S. citizens. Amending the charter takes a citywide vote.

The proposal rests on qualifiers intended to reassure the public. Torres and Sandoval emphasize how non-citizens who have legal work authorization would be serving as police and firefighters, as they already are in other departments of Denver city government. The council members also say their proposal would open doors of opportunity to immigrants who had entered the country illegally as children with their families and who subsequently were shielded from deportation only by the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. And non-citizen cops and firefighters still would have to speak English, Torres and Sandoval say.

The implied message is people who are Americans in all but their citizenship status would be helping police streets and respond to emergencies.

But it’s actually more problematic than that.

The proposed charter change only would remove a phrase. None of the assurances offered by Torres and Sandoval seem to be addressed by the change itself and presumably would have to be taken up subsequently by the City Council. That leaves a lot of wiggle room and raises unanswered questions.

Would the radical new policy actually end up requiring job applicants to be legal U.S. residents, as proponents suggest? Or, might the doors be flung open wider to those who technically aren’t permitted to work – but are able bodied and speak English?

Even immigrants covered under the DACA program have a status that remains far from clear. While they cannot be deported, they aren’t permanent resident aliens under federal law and are regarded variously for purposes of qualifying for assorted state and federal programs.

That points to the more fundamental flaw in this proposal. Even a lot of immigrants who now are legally authorized to work may have entered the country illegally in the first place. And, strictly speaking, all DACA beneficiaries entered illegally.

No doubt, some of them have the makings of good cops or firefighters. But particularly when it comes to police work, it flouts the whole premise of wearing a badge if the cop behind it is in Colorado only because he or she broke the law in the first place.

Make no mistake, there have been plenty of foreign-born Denver police officers who have served with distinction. But they became U.S. citizens, first.

Torres and Sandoval insist they are trying to help the police and fire departments address recruiting challenges. Our guess is their proposal is more about scoring points with the progressive political fringe by devaluing U.S. citizenship.

In any event, legal U.S. residents who feel they are up to the challenge of working as police or firefighters are free and welcome to apply the old-fashioned way – legally, as citizens.

Denver Gazette Editorial Board