If the sheriff had any balls he'd tell the justice department lawyers to go eF themselves.

He's the goddamned sheriff! He's the face of law enforcement in the county. SMH asking WTF?

Obamadable progressive fascism is still hard at work.
January 20, 2017, can't get here fast enough.

Roughly 40 of the 50 states have laws that require police to be citizens. Those getting the Obama DOJ fines for not hiring non-citizens are in the states that have no such laws. Consequently, this is a tax on citizens in Democrat states. I won't cry over the unintended consequence of political correctness in this case.

These cops were citizens:
New Orleans

MARCH 4, 1995
Officer kills civilians and former partner
On this night, Officer Antoinette Frank eats at a Vietnamese restaurant where she had once done private security detail work. Hours later, she returns with civilian Rogers LaCaze to rob the establishment. Frank and LaCaze shoot and kill Frank's former partner, Officer Ronald Williams, who is working security at the restaurant, and several members of the Vu family, the restaurant's owners.
Teenager Chau Vu survives by hiding in a cooler during the robbery. When the call goes out that there's a shooting, Frank returns to the restaurant supposedly to help in the investigation. Chau Vu identifies her as the shooter, and Frank is arrested, tried and convicted of first-degree murder. Sentenced to death in September 1995, she remains on death row. LaCaze is also convicted of murder and sentenced to death row.
Disturbing details later emerge about Frank: She had failed two psychological exams before being admitted to the police academy; a supervisor recommended she return to the academy for more training, and she had stolen the gun used in the murders from the NOPD evidence room.

New Orleans --
OCTOBER 13, 1994
Officer Len Davis caught on tape ordering a hit on a civilian
New Orleans resident Kim Marie Groves witnesses Officer Davis beating up a neighborhood teenager and files a formal complaint with the police. Within hours, a colleague tells Davis about Groves' allegations. The next night Groves is shot dead in front of her house. Davis had planned her hit -- it was inadvertently recorded by federal officials who are investigating a cocaine ring involving Davis.
Paradoxically, Davis had a reputation for being both roguish and a good cop: Between 1987 and 1992, he received 20 complaints and was suspended six times. He was also awarded the NOPD's second highest honor, the Medal of Merit, in 1993. "He was Robocop to some people," historian Leonard Moore tells FRONTLINE. "But then he was, I would say, Officer Friendly to other people."

Tried and sentenced to death for Groves' murder, Davis remains on death row. He is one of nine officers later indicted on federal weapons and drug charges for their participation in the cocaine ring; a half dozen, including Davis, are convicted.

If non-citizens were never cops, we would not have had police in the first place. Do you think they learned that Irish brogue at the police academy? We are a nation of immigrants. Public service is one way to demonstrate your willingness and ability to become a citizen.

The Fox News presentation is an example of opinion inserted as news. (Being a quote from a USA Today story, it is just scissors-and-paste journalism, not actual reporting.)

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, told USA Today last year that while he supports the idea of opening up hiring at police departments to non-citizens who are in the U.S. legally, he worried about security risks of police officers who have only work permits.
"We're handing over a gun and a badge to somebody whose background we don't really know a lot about," Krikorian said.

That is simply xenophobia. No police department hires anyone without a background investigation. I have worked as a technical writer for public safety forces and gone through background investigations to get those jobs. And I worked with non-citizens who went through the same process. And I saw one of my native-born citizen colleagues removed when their background check came back negative.

In fact, I would say that the overwhelming number of police officers who were arrested for corruption have been citizens who passed extensive background investigations before being accepted, hired, and trained. (See the discussion here on Recidivism.)

The $10K fine was just a slap on the wrist to get their attention.

(The other was Eugene, Oregon, in 2015 here:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa...

"Chicago and Hawaii police departments accept job applicants who have a work permit, according to USA Today."
Ahem, two of the most socialist governments in the nation and the last choices to emulate.

Has this turned into a stupid country or what?! Imagine, law enforcement turned over to law breakers. Are the inmates really running the asylums or is it just my imagination?

You know, it's about time to replace our Federal Justice Department. If it was done by law, then we need to change a law. Or maybe we should just issue a gun to everyone crossing the border into our country. I just can't image a noncitizen cop carrying a gun in my city. Hopefully a real American president will soon pardon Denver Sheriff's Department and send them a refund.

Most mercenaries are a diverse lot. Why not just hire them. They are pre-trained and many of them would like to stay in one place instead of traveling all over to some stinky hell-holes. You say that most of them are sadistic killers?
Hmmm. Well....perhaps...nah.
It would tend to clean things up, but then.....