WASHINGTON, June 19: The new US guidelines for racial equality will fail to end racial profiling, human rights advocacy groups said on Thursday.

In a joint statement, several rights groups said that the guidelines, issued on Tuesday, only address profiling on the basis of race and ethnicity, and do not address religion or national origin, even though civil rights laws specifically prohibit discrimination on these grounds.

Besides, the groups said, the guidelines do not provide for their own enforcement. Law enforcement agencies, who are required to implement these guidelines, have no obligation to monitor their compliance, and individuals who have been unfairly targeted have no means for redress, the groups said.

The guidelines leave open an extremely vague and broad exception for “national security and border integrity,” the statement said.

The groups observed that the guidelines are inapplicable to state and local law enforcement and federal legislation is required to enforce them.

The guidelines, the rights groups observed, do not require the collection of information on federal law enforcement activities that might reveal a trend toward racial profiling — often the only means by which such activities can be detected and corrected.

On Tuesday, the US Department of Justice released guidelines regarding the use of race and ethnicity by federal law enforcement activities that purport to fulfil President George W. Bush’s promise to end racial profiling in America.

The National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium and its affiliate the Asian Law Caucus, find that the guidelines fall far short of the President’s promise. The National Council of Pakistani Americans also supports their position.

All three groups have renewed their call for federal legislation that would ban racial profiling.

They say that racial profiling is any use of race, religion, ethnicity, or national origin by law enforcement agents as a means of deciding whom to investigate, except where these characteristics are part of a specific suspect description.

They argue that singling out people for law enforcement on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion or national origin relies on the assumption that a particular crime is most likely to be committed by members of a particular racial, ethnic, religious, or national group.