August 2, 2025

Immigrant officers have improved American policing

PERF members,

On Monday evening, NYPD Officer Didarul Islam and three others were killed by a gunman in Manhattan. Officer Islam was a 36-year-old immigrant from Bangladesh who had been with the department for three years. The New York Timesquoted family friend Marjanul Karim as saying Officer Islam “came as an immigrant, started working as a security guard at a school. He wanted to support his family and be in a better position, and he fell in love with law enforcement while working security. At the time, my mother told him, ‘You left a safe job working for a school in security, and being a cop is dangerous. Why did you do that?’ He told her he wanted to leave behind a legacy for his family, something they could be proud of.” According to the same article, a distant relative “said Officer Islam would send money to Bangladesh to help relatives and villagers pay for medical treatment and other needs.”

The New York Yankees hold a pre-game moment of silence for fallen Officer Didarul Islam. Source: Yankees on X.

Officers with the NYPD’s 47th Precinct mourn the passing of Officer Islam. Source: NYPD on X.

NYPD employees come from all over the world. Its sworn and professional staff are certified to provide interpretation services in 109 different languages. And a January 2010 New York Times article reported that “of the 5,593 officers hired since July 2006, . . . 1,042 of them were foreign-born, hailing from 88 countries.”

Sadly, the agency has a history of its immigrant officers making the ultimate sacrifice. Two who immediately come to mind are Detective Russel Timoshenko, a 23-year-old born in Belarus who was fatally shot during a traffic stop in 2007, and Detective Wenjian Liu, a 32-year-old originally from China who was killed alongside Detective Rafael Ramos in an ambush attack in 2014.

Detective Timoshenko. Source: NYPD on Instagram

Detective Liu. Source: NYPDfirstdep on Instagram

This week’s tragedy in New York got me thinking about how American police departments have relied on immigrants and descendants of immigrants for centuries, from Irish-American officers in Boston, to Polish-American officers in Chicago, to Korean-American and Mexican-American officers in Los Angeles, to Chinese-American officers in San Francisco, to Hmong-American officers in Saint Paul, to Somali-American officers in Minneapolis. A 2017 PERF report discussed the Minneapolis Police Department’s initiative to put Somali-American officers in the city’s Cedar-Riverside community, which has gone a long way toward building trust.

There are stories like this across the United States. Earlier this year, CBS News reported on Officer Fidele Sebahizi of the Abilene (Texas) Police Department. Officer Sebahizi came to the United States as a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In addition to working as a police officer, Officer Sebahizi speaks five languages and has earned a master’s degree and PhD.

In 2023, South Dakota Searchlight reported on Officer Pywe Der, a member of the Karen ethnic group who moved from Thailand to the United States when he was 12. After graduating from Huron (South Dakota) High School, where he was homecoming king, Officer Der joined the Huron Police Department.

Former PERF president John Timoney was a close friend. He immigrated from Dublin to New York City at age 12, joined the NYPD as a trainee shortly after graduating from high school, rose to become the agency’s first deputy commissioner, then served as the Philadelphia police commissioner and Miami police chief. Three American cities were safer thanks to one immigrant’s innovative leadership.

Officer Islam is part of a long history of immigrants improving American communities through policing. A 2024 PERF report noted some of the benefits of hiring immigrants and refugees as officers, including “counteracting the recruitment shortfall, filling important force needs to implement community policing initiatives, expanding the number of multilingual officers, and providing tangible evidence of a police department’s commitment to involving immigrant communities in the day-to-day activity of a police department.” These officers have strengthened the profession and our country.

Best,

Chuck