By Associated Press and Daily Mail Reporter PUBLISHED: 12:06 EST, 19 September 2012 | UPDATED: 12:06 EST, 19 September 2012 A North Carolina sheriff and his deputies routinely discriminated against Hispanics - a group he referred to as 'taco eaters' - by making unwarranted arrests with the goal of ramping up deportations, according to a two-year probe by the U.S. Department of Justice. In an 11-page report issued Tuesday, the federal agency said Alamance County Sheriff Terry S. Johnson and his deputies violated the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens and legal residents by illegally targeting, stopping, detaining and arresting Latinos without probable cause.
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Department of Justice report finds rampant discrimination against Latinos in Alamance County, North Carolina
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Report was result of two-year investigation into the sheriff's office
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Sheriff Terry Johnson claims his department does not discriminate against Hispanics, and that he's being targeted by White House
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Probe finds that department members feared retaliation if they cooperated with federal investigators
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Johnson said Tuesday he and his staff had 'cooperated fully' with the @placeholder, providing tens of thousands of pages of documents.