The Obama administration is preparing to announce a new set of rules limiting the use of racial profiling by federal agents.
However, federal agents who do border checks and screen passengers at airports will be exempt from the new profiling guidelines.
Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to announce the revisions in the coming days that will expand the scope of racial profiling to include religion, gender, national origin and sexual orientation.
Such profiling will be banned from national security cases by various enforcement agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation. However, the new rules will exempt agencies of the Department of Homeland Security that cover borders and airports.
Officials told The Washington Post the new practices will be considered as guidance for local police.
While the government has been working on the new guidelines for years, the announcement of the new racial profiling rules comes against a backdrop of protests across the U.S. because of highly charged racial incidents in which white police officers in New York City and Ferguson, Missouri were not charged of killing unarmed black men.
