WASHINGTON — As the Obama administration prepares to announce new curbs on racial profiling by federal law enforcement, government officials said Friday that many officers and agents at the Department of Homeland Security still will be allowed to use the controversial practice, including while they screen airline passengers and guard the country’s Southwest border.
Attorney General Eric Holder is expected early next week to detail long-awaited revisions in the Justice Department’s rules for racial profiling, banning it from national security cases for the first time. The changes will expand the definition of profiling to prevent FBI agents from considering factors such as religion and national origin when opening cases, officials said.
But after sharp disagreements among top officials, the administration will exempt a broad swath of DHS, namely the Transportation Security Administration and key parts of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, according to law enforcement officials.
The announcement of the new policy comes at a time of rising national protest over allegations that police engage in profiling when investigating and using force against minorities.
Civil rights groups and Democratic lawmakers have been pressuring the administration to expand anti-profiling protections ever since President Barack Obama’s election in 2008, and the Justice Department has been working on the changes for five years.
President George W. Bush banned racial profiling in 2003, but the prohibition did not apply to national security investigations and covered only race — not religion, national origin or sexual orientation.
All of those categories will be covered under the new policy. In recent months, DHS officials pushed the White House and Justice Department to allow major exclusions for prominent DHS agencies such as TSA, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection, officials said. CBP, for instance, will be allowed to continue using racial profiling when conducting inspections at the country’s “ports of entry” and interdictions of travelers at the border, officials said.
Some DHS officials also questioned the Justice Department’s authority to set policies for a separate federal agency.
