Sometime next week, Attorney General Eric Holder will announce a new set of guidelines that will restrict the controversial practice of racial profiling in law enforcement agencies.

The first black U.S. attorney general is expected to detail the plan as early as Monday. The new guidelines are supposed to curb racial profiling in national security cases and expand the definition of profiling to include religion and nationality when FBI agents are investigating opened cases­.

"In the coming days, I will announce updated Justice Department guidance regarding profiling by federal law enforcement," said the nation's top law enforcement officer during a speech at a Baptist church in Atlanta, reports the Washington Post. "This will institute rigorous new standards and robust safeguards to help end racial profiling, once and for all. This new guidance will codify our commitment to the very highest standards of fair and effective policing."

However, critics say that the new policy doesn't go far enough to stop profiling. For one, many officers and agents at the Department of Homeland Security will still be allowed to use the practice, including when screening airline passengers and guarding the southwestern border.

As a result, Transportation Security Administration officers will be allowed to continue to stop and question Mexican Americans near the border because of their ethnicity. TSA agents will be also allowed to continue to stop passengers based on their national origin or ethnicity when there is a potential threat.

In addition, the ban on profiling based on religion, national origin, gender, and gender identity will not be extended to include local law enforcement agencies. Instead, local law enforcement officers will only be required to follow the rules when working with federal investigators, said a government official on the condition of anonymity.

The new guidelines will also continue to permit federal agencies to "map" out whole communities for investigative purposes based on religion or ethnicity.

"There are some positive changes but those changes are largely superficial and the real test of this guidance is whether it will actually change federal law enforcement practices," said a senior Democratic aide in the Senate, reports the Los Angeles Times. "My sense at this point is that it will not."

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