WASHINGTON, December 9 (Sputnik) – The US Department of Homeland Security and federal immigration authorities engaged in "authorized intelligence activities" will be exempt from the policy limiting racial profiling of suspects, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has said.
"Common sense dictates that when a victim describes the assailant as possessing a certain characteristic, law enforcement officers may properly limit their search for suspects to persons possessing that characteristic," the DOJ outlined in a memorandum on Monday.
Under the DOJ policy, federal law enforcement officers can no longer act on the belief that characteristics including race, gender and religious belief make a suspect a higher risk.
However, the new policy says that when there are threats to national or homeland security and violations to Federal immigration law these authorities are allowed to consider characteristics including race, ethnicity, gender, national origin or religious orientation.
"Law enforcement should not be expected to disregard such facts in taking investigative or preventive steps aimed at the organization's activities," the memorandum said.
It applies to investigations concerning a criminal organization or terrorist group "whose membership has been identified as overwhelmingly possessing a listed characteristic", according to the memorandum.
The implementation of the DOJ's policy follows widespread race related police brutality cases around the United States in Missouri, New York, Arizona and Ohio, where unarmed African American men have been killed by white police officers which has caused massive protests throughout the country in the recent weeks.
