Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has co-sponsored a racial profiling ban that would defund state law enforcement programs engaged in “racial profiling” and empower Attorney General Eric Holder to “report on” instances of raclal profiling by law enforcement officials. The law sounds innocuous, but it that would likely threaten law enforcement funding for states with illegal immigration laws such as Arizona.
“Racial profiling has no place in our law enforcement,” said Reid in a statement. “It’s imperative that [law enforcement officials] use their scarce resources for real law enforcement that targets those who engage in criminal activity, not one group of people based on their race, ethnicity, or national origin.”
The End Racial Profiling Act of 2011 provisions most likely to be used against Arizona would “withhold federal law enforcement funding if local and state governments failed to adopt effective policies that prohibit racial profiling.” As a corollary, the law would “require the Attorney General to report on ongoing discriminatory profiling practices.”
Last year, a Reid spokesman described the Arizona law — allowing police to check the immigration status of people encountered in traffic stops and other law enforcement situations — as “legalization of racial profiling.”
