Houston Mayor Limits Police Cooperation With ICE After Elections

The Texas Tribune

HOUSTON, TX — Houston Mayor John Whitmire directed police to limit cooperation with immigration officers during traffic stops — months after Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to withhold millions in state funding over the city’s past restrictions on cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“I do this to begin a healing process — reduce fear and anxiety across our community,” Whitmire said. “I also do this knowing that elections matter.”

The announcement comes after Democrats won statewide elections last week for top offices after years of Republican dominance. Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa ousted Abbott and had been critical of Abbott’s immigration policies.

Whitmire said his executive order tells police officers to contact ICE officers only for a jailable offense and if a suspect has an ICE warrant. Houston police will cite and release people for nonviolent cases.

Houston Police Chief J. Noe Diaz said at the news conference he agreed with the mayor’s executive order, adding that his officers won’t contact ICE if someone has an immigration warrant — as long as that person has not committed a jailable offense.

After President Donald Trump returned to the White House, his administration added more than 700,000 administrative immigration warrants to a national criminal database used by police departments across the country. 

Houston police leaders directed officers to contact ICE when they encountered someone with one of those warrants. Unlike criminal warrants signed by judges, administrative ICE warrants are issued by immigration officials and often identify people with outstanding deportation orders.

In April, Houston City Council adopted an ordinance eliminating a policy requiring officers to wait 30 minutes for ICE agents to arrive at traffic stops initiated by Houston police.

In response, Abbott threatened to withdraw roughly $110 million in state public safety grants, arguing the ordinance violated the state’s 2017 Senate Bill 4, which makes it illegal for a police department to limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. As a state lawmaker, Whitmire voted against SB 4.

City Council subsequently revised the ordinance, and Houston police issued new instructions requiring officers to contact ICE when they encountered someone with an administrative immigration warrant. The department told officers to wait a “reasonable” amount of time for immigration agents to take custody of the immigrant.

In Austin, Mayor Kirk Watson asked the police chief and city manager Friday to revise the city’s policy governing ICE warrants after facing similar pressure from Abbott to cooperate with federal immigration agents.

In San Antonio, Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones said she will ask the city manager to explore options for ending the police department’s cooperation with ICE, according to the San Antonio Current.