clipped from: www.reuters.com ATLANTA (Reuters) - U.S. authorities detain thousands of people each year solely on the basis of religion, race or nationality despite efforts by senior law enforcement officials and the government to stop it, the American Civil Liberties Union said.
"While there is a political consensus regarding the problem and a need for a solution it has not translated into concrete action," Bhatnagar said. He referred to the End Racial Profiling Bill first introduced in 1997, but which had not yet been passed into law.
"Police officers who are often not adequately trained, and in some cases not trained at all, in federal immigration enforcement, will improperly rely on race or ethnicity as a proxy for undocumented status," the report said.
The involvement of local police in this was having a "devastating impact" on some communities, Bhatnagar said.