Here's one that once upon a time would have made the 'stranger than truth' bin, but that was before virtue signaling progressives spent much of their time trying to out-signal each other.
A couple of years ago, a young man from Jamaica came to the United States for a visit.
He liked it so much, he stayed, and in a weird sort of parallel to Cool Runnings, the handsome lad from the tropical island wound up in one of the tiny beach communities in our most northern of North Eastern states - Maine.
Not one to be a slacker, Jon Luke Evans endeavored to become such a part of the community that, this past May, he was hired as a seasonal law enforcement officer for the little community of Old Orchard Beach, on the coast just south of Portland.
Mr Evans went through all the law enforcement training required, graduated from the Maine Criminal Justice Academy’s Law Enforcement Pre-Service (LEPS) Program, passed requisite checks, and was proud to accept his department badge and service weapon from Old Orchard Beach police chief, Elise Chard.
It was official. He was now Officer Evans of the OOBPD.
Posted to the Old Orchard Brach Police Department Facebook page. Gun can be seen here clear as day. pic.twitter.com/lxw0oN53bz
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) July 28, 2025
Had Officer Evans left it at that, he might have flown under the radar for a good long while. But as he was now officially a law enforcement officer in the state of Maine, he felt he needed a personal weapon, and so he attempted to legally purchase one in the same manner we all do.
That's where it bit him, and this whole fairytale existence fell apart.
WHAT?!
— Conservative Brief (@ConservBrief) July 29, 2025
ICE has arrested Jon Luke Evans, an illegal immigrant from Jamaica, after he attempted to buy a firearm. Evans had been serving as a police officer in Old Orchard Beach, Maine.
HOW in the world can Maine allow an illegal alien to get hired as a law enforcement officer?! pic.twitter.com/ppoEDnXw0p
ICE came calling when the federal firearm background check pinged on Evans' overstayed visa. The Boston office acting field director unloaded on the OOB police department.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Maine arrested an illegally present Jamaican offender after he unlawfully attempted to purchase a firearm. Officers with ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Boston in partnership with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested Jon Luke Evans July 25 in Biddeford.
At the time of his arrest, Evans was employed as a reserve police officer with the Old Orchard Beach Police Department.
“Jon Luke Evans not only broke U.S. immigration law, but he also illegally attempted to purchase a firearm. Shockingly, Evans was employed as a local law enforcement officer,” said ICE ERO Boston acting Field Office Director Patricia H. Hyde. “The fact that a police department would hire an illegal alien and unlawfully issue him a firearm while on duty would be comical if it weren’t so tragic. We have a police department that was knowingly breaking the very law they are charged with enforcing in order to employ an illegal alien. ICE Boston will continue to prioritize public safety by arresting and removing criminal alien threats from our New England communities.”
This is where the story gets a little ticklish.
This is DEI... Old Orchard Beach's first female police chief Elise Chard plasters images over social media of her hiring a non-white police officer, Jon Luke Evans... who turns out to be an illegal alien prohibited from carrying a firearm.https://t.co/PG11E30XwJ pic.twitter.com/VgQKyqfVlz
— Steve Robinson (@BigSteve207) July 28, 2025
The first, most basic part of the hiring process is that Maine allows non-citizens (along with states like California - see a pattern here?) to work in law enforcement.
...Maine is among several U.S. states that permits non-citizens with valid work permits to work as law enforcement. Old Orchard Beach reserve officers are seasonal employees responsible for community patrols and are prohibited from taking department-issued firearms home or carrying personal weapons while on duty.
OOB hires these seasonal officers because, while the town's resident population is only around 10,000 people or so, in the summer it can swell to over 100,000 at times as the vacationing crowds pour in.
The second wrinkle in the saga is what Chief Chard (and that will never not be funny) is pushing back on ICE with - that her department fully vetted and filed all required paperwork on Evans prior to hiring him with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and it all came back clean.
...The Old Orchard Beach Police Department told Fox News Digital that Evans was hired in May as a seasonal officer and underwent a full background check, physical and medical screening, and law enforcement training.
As part of the hiring process, the department submitted his employment documents to DHS through the federal E-Verify system. According to police, DHS confirmed Evans’ eligibility to work, and his Employment Authorization Document showed an expiration date of March 2030.
“Our department and our community relied on the Department of Homeland Security’s E-Verify program to ensure we were meeting our obligations,” said Police Chief Elise Chard. “We are distressed and deeply concerned about this apparent error on the part of the federal government.”
So, if that does turn out to be true and the police department has all its t's crossed and i's dotted, there needs to be some serious follow-up on rejiggering the screening process.
It also has to be determined if Evans lied on any section of the paperwork, and that was not uncovered during the screening process.
As of right now, it's a war of words, and Mr Evans has not been seen since his arrest.
But he's not an outlier as far as illegals in law enforcement by any means.
.32-year-old Gratien Milandou-Wamba, a Cumberland County Corrections Officer, is currently being held in a New Hampshire prison after being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in April while driving to work.
...Milandou-Wamba claimed to the Portland paper that he is still unaware of why he was arrested and said that ICE agents have refused to answer his questions. He told the paper that he arrived in the U.S. in May 2023 on a tourist visa from the Congo, where he claims he was tortured.
After arriving on a tourist visa, he says that he applied for asylum and received a work permit and social security number while his asylum claim was pending.
Despite saying that no ICE officers would answer his questions, Milandou-Wamba admitted that the arresting officers told him he had overstayed his visa, but he believed his work permit would allow him to avoid deportation as his asylum case was adjudicated.
The difference is that now the government is looking for them, and after all these years of Democrat enablement coupled with benign neglect?
Maybe we should stop allowing non US citizens to become police officers https://t.co/Ouu0fkLdoI
— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) July 28, 2025
It could very well be a target-rich environment, sadly.
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