Trump Administration Seeks to Loosen Rules for Senior Law Enforcement Hires
The Trump Administration wants to loosen qualifications for senior law enforcement roles in a bid to boost recruitment and widen the pool of candidates.
In a notice published in the Federal Register, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) proposed changing the qualifications needed to be hired into secondary law enforcement positions.
Currently, a candidate needs to have worked in a primary law enforcement position (front line workers whose primary duties are the investigation, apprehension, or detention of individuals suspected of federal criminal offenses) before being hired into a secondary position, which includes supervisory and other executive roles.
Under OPM’s proposed changes to retirement regulations, the mandatory requirement that candidates have experience in a primary position before moving into an executive-level role would be removed.
OPM said the change would give agencies “greater flexibility when recruiting for executive positions,” noting that a candidate’s “other experiences, skills and abilities could outweigh front-line experience when recruiting for executive leadership positions.”
OPM also said it could open additional opportunities for current members of the Senior Executive Service (SES) “to build their career development and enable agile agency response to critical staffing requirements and demands.”
It’s important to note that those hired into a secondary position without primary experience would not qualify for special retirement benefits, although those promoted from positions covered by those benefits would continue to remain under them.
Agencies would retain the option to require primary-position experience as a prerequisite for secondary roles.
Public comments on the proposed rule are due by March 6, 2026.