APRIL 17, 2012
"Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member Graham and members of the Subcommittee: I am honored to submit this testimony for the record on behalf of the Center for Constitutional Rights in conjunction with today’s hearing on racial profiling. The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These rights and protections must extend to everyone in the country regardless of race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, or immigration status. Through our litigation and advocacy efforts against the New York Police Department (NYPD) and abusive immigration enforcement programs such as Secure Communities, along with our stance against law enforcement’s unjust surveillance of and entrapment targeting the Muslim, Arab and South Asian communities, CCR has historically been a strong voice for ending racial profiling across the country.
We thank you for holding this critical and timely hearing on racial profiling and the End Racial Profiling Act. The Center for Constitutional Rights is particularly concerned about the many policies and practices at the national, state and local level which encourage or incentivizediscriminatory and abusive law enforcement practices such as racial profiling. These practices are counterproductive, waste public resources and violate the civil and human rights of persons living in the United States.
Racial profiling occurs whenever law enforcement agents use race, religion, ethnicity, or national origin as the sole factor in deciding whom they should investigate, arrest or detain. Singling people out on the basis of their race, ethnicity, religion, national origin or perceived citizenship or immigration status is a serious concern to the Center for Constitutional Rights and its thousands of supporters. Regardless of whether it takes place under the guise of the war on drugs, immigration enforcement, or counterterrorism efforts, racial profiling harms the community and creates distrust between law enforcement and the communities they serve."
