[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 42 (Friday, March 10, 2017)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E316-E317]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            INTRODUCTION OF END RACIAL PROFILING ACT OF 2017

                                  _____
                                 

                         HON. JOHN CONYERS, JR.

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, March 10, 2017

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to introduce the End Racial 
Profiling Act of 2017, along with additional cosponsors. This 
legislation represents a comprehensive federal commitment to healing 
the rift caused by racial, ethnic and religious profiling and restoring 
public confidence in the criminal justice system at-large. This 
legislation is designed to enforce the constitutional right to equal 
protection of the laws by changing the policies and procedures 
underlying the practice of discriminatory profiling.
  Recent events in the wake of President Trump's Executive Orders on 
Immigration demonstrate that racial, ethnic and religious profiling 
remain dangerous and divisive issues in our communities. Airport 
detentions of Muslims and immigration raids targeted at the Latino 
community strike at the very foundation of our democracy. Though people 
across our nation are protesting in response to these actions, there is 
no substitute for comprehensive federal anti-profiling legislation.
  This legislation can be traced back to the data collection efforts of 
the late 1990's that were designed to determine whether racial 
profiling was a fact versus an urban legend. Based upon the work around 
that legislation, by September 11, 2001, there was significant 
empirical evidence and wide agreement among Americans, including 
President Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft, that racial profiling was 
a tragic fact of life in the minority community and that the Federal 
government should take action to end the practice. Moreover, many in 
the law enforcement community have acknowledged that singling out 
people for heightened scrutiny based on their race, ethnicity, 
religion, or national origin had eroded the trust in law enforcement 
necessary to appropriately serve and protect our communities.
  Despite the fact that the majority of law enforcement officers 
perform their duties professionally and without bias, and we value 
their service highly, the specter of discriminatory profiling has 
contaminated the relationship between the police and minority 
communities to such a degree that Federal action is justified to begin 
addressing the issue.
  The End Racial Profiling Act is designed to eliminate the well 
documented problem of racial, ethnic, religious, gender, sexual 
orientation, gender identity and national origin profiling. First, the 
bill provides a prohibition on racial profiling, enforceable by 
declaratory or injunctive relief. Second, the bill mandates that 
training on racial profiling issues as part of Federal law enforcement 
training, the collection of data on all routine or spontaneous 
investigatory activities that is to be submitted through a standardized 
form to the Department of Justice. Third, the Justice Department is 
authorized to provide grants for the development and implementation of 
best policing practices, such as early warning systems, technology 
integration, and other management protocols that discourage profiling. 
Finally, the Attorney General is required to provide periodic reports 
to assess the nature of any ongoing discriminatory profiling practices.
  In recent years the deaths of Walter L. Scott, arising from a traffic 
stop, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Antonio Zambrano-Montes, all at 
the hands of police officers, have highlighted the link between the 
issues of race and reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct. These 
individuals were denied the basic respect and equal treatment that is 
the right of every American. Ultimately, these men are tragic examples 
of the risk of being victimized by a perception of criminality simply 
because of their race, ethnicity, religion or national origin. These 
dangerous misperceptions of criminality helped to cultivate an 
environment in which the United States government considers 
discriminatory and unconstitutional executive orders a reasonable use 
of executive power.
  Decades ago, the passage of sweeping civil rights legislation made 
clear that race, religion and ethnicity should not affect the treatment 
of individual Americans under the law. The practice of using race or 
other characteristics as a proxy for criminality in law enforcement 
undermines the progress we have made toward achieving equality under 
the law. Please join me in supporting this legislation.

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