Report renews scrutiny of Alamance sheriff's record on Latino profiling

A new report has pushed Alamance County’s long-running fight over Latino profiling back into the center of the sheriff’s race, just as Terry Johnson seeks a seventh term and faces an unusual November challenge from unaffiliated candidate Shannon Long. For many Latino residents in Graham and across Alamance County, the question is not whether the accusations are old, but whether anything about the sheriff’s office has changed enough to rebuild trust.

The scrutiny reaches back more than two decades. The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Sept. 18, 2012, that after a comprehensive investigation it had found the Alamance County Sheriff’s Office engaged in a pattern or practice of discriminatory policing against Latinos. Federal officials said they opened the probe on June 2, 2010, then filed a civil rights lawsuit on Dec. 20, 2012, alleging that Johnson’s office routinely targeted Latinos for investigation, traffic stops, arrests, seizures and other enforcement actions.

Court filings said the government alleged the conduct had gone on from at least January 2007 onward. A federal judge dismissed the case in 2014, but Johnson and the Justice Department later reached a settlement agreement on Aug. 17, 2016, intended to ensure county residents were served effectively and in compliance with the Constitution and state and federal law.

Johnson, first elected sheriff in 2002, is now in his 24th year in office and won the Republican primary on March 3, 2026. With no Democratic nominee on the ballot, he remains the favorite heading into the November general election, but Long’s qualification has given voters a rare direct choice on the office. Long submitted 5,011 petition signatures, exceeding the 4,741 required by the Alamance County Board of Elections.

The race has also revived broader questions about how the sheriff’s office handles immigration enforcement. Over the years, the office has had contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to house up to 40 migrants in custody, a practice that critics say deepened fear in immigrant neighborhoods. Johnson ended the county’s detainee-housing agreement in early 2026 amid jail-crowding concerns, but immigrant advocates say the county’s history still shapes whether Latino residents will call deputies when they need help.

The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina has repeatedly argued that Johnson’s record reflects racial profiling and warned that cooperation with ICE can widen mistrust in immigrant communities. Johnson has defended his office, and recent reporting has said he insists there will be no racial profiling by the sheriff’s office. In Alamance County, where the sheriff’s office has been under federal scrutiny before, the central issue now is whether voters believe those assurances or the record that keeps coming back into view.