KALAMAZOO — Public safety officials may soon implement a city-wide anti-profiling policy in an effort to increase cooperation between police and the community.

The policy would ban discrimination or profiling based on appearance, ethnicity, gender, dress, origin, physical characteristics, race, religion or sexual orientation.

It would protect people from being questioned about immigration status when stopped for a traffic offense or when reporting a crime.

Kalamazoo police are considering the policy after encouragement from the Michigan Organizing Project. The faith based, non-profit organization has been pushing for an update to the anti-profiling policy for the past year.

Larry Provancher, leader of the MOP immigration task force, said increasing cooperation between the police and undocumented immigrants is a major concern in the Kalamazoo area.

“They are reluctant to go to the police or legal authorities [to report a crime] for fear of being turned over to ICE for deportation,” said Provancher. “This will help get support and cooperation for the police… You want people to treat the police as a friend. When people are stopped, they don’t want to be stopped because of how they talk, or the color of their skin. If you break a traffic law, you want to be stopped for that, not because you have an accent.”

Similar anti-profiling measures were enacted in Hamtramck in 2008 and Detroit in 2007.

Exceptions have been included in the measures to allow immigration inquiries when conducting criminal investigations.

“It’s really a trade-off for a safer community because people report crimes,” Provancher said. “Its simply a humanitarian policy.”