Houston Mayor John Whitmire signed an order on Friday directing Houston police to limit cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, days after Democrats won statewide offices in Texas in Tuesday's midterm elections.1,5,7
Whitmire, a Democrat, said the change was a direct result of Democrats reclaiming power in Texas for the first time in decades. He said the city would focus enforcement on immigrants who pose a danger, and that people stopped for minor violations would be released with a citation rather than referred to federal immigration authorities.1,5,7
Under the new directive, Houston police officers are to contact ICE only when a person is arrested on a charge subject to jailing and that person also has an administrative immigration warrant, officials said. Houston Police Chief J. Noe Diaz Jr. said officers who pull someone over for a minor traffic infraction and write a citation will let that person go about their day.5
"This is the right thing to do at the right time," Whitmire said during a press conference announcing the change. "No one has to worry about them doing a warrant, search, which includes ICE unless they're being charged with a new jailable offense, including dangerous crimes, violent offenders. It will improve our public safety, it will reduce the fear and anxiety of students, our workers, and I will take the responsibility of making this change even with the current administration still in office for two months," he said.5
"I've said many times, elections matter," Whitmire said. He said the city would go after immigrants "that pose a danger, not those that are going about their family business, work and education." In the case of a traffic incident, he said, "you write a citation or you warn them and they go about their way," and he said he hoped the order would serve as a model for Texas cities.5,7
"The message is clear: ICE will only be contacted if someone commits a jailable offense," Diaz said. "This means our officers will only contact ICE if someone they arrest also has an administrative ICE warrant. For example, if our police officers pull someone over for a minor traffic infraction and they write a citation, that person receives a citation and goes about their day." Diaz added, "HPD will no longer contact ICE if they have an administrative warrant and they are not arrested," he said.5
The two-page order states, "The fact that a person is, or is suspected to be, subject to immigration enforcement shall not, by itself, be a basis to contact ICE, to prolong any detention, or to take any person into or hold any person in custody." Spokespersons for ICE did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the announcement.7
Cesar Espinosa, executive director of FIEL, an immigrant rights group in Houston, said enforcement before the change "looked like a complete collaboration between Houston Police Department and ICE." He said that collaboration left residents afraid to be stopped for a traffic ticket or to call for help when witnessing a crime. "It gives our community a sigh of relief in that we know of many people in the city of Houston that will not even go to the grocery store because they're afraid that they're going to get caught up by ICE or they're gonna get pulled over by HPD and HPD is gonna call ICE on them," Espinosa said.7
The order follows an April dispute over a Houston City Council ordinance that barred officers from detaining people on administrative immigration warrants and eliminated a requirement to wait 30 minutes for ICE agents to pick up someone with a nonjudicial administrative warrant. Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to pull public safety grants from Austin, Dallas and Houston over the effort. Accounts differed on the amount at stake, with PBS putting the figure at nearly $200 million and The Daily Wire putting it at more than $110 million.5,7
Abbott said the ordinance violated the terms of millions of dollars in state grants Houston had received for police and security during the World Cup games the city hosted in June. Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit accusing the city of violating a 2017 state law that prevents cities from adopting policies that limit enforcement of immigration laws. The state requires grant recipients to work with ICE, and Abbott has said that if they refuse to help federal immigration authorities, "they forfeit the money" and must "repay to the state every single dollar they have received."5,7
The city revised the ordinance two weeks after passing it, deleting language stating that administrative warrants are not enough for officers to arrest or detain a person, and police were instructed to hold people for a reasonable amount of time for ICE to take custody. Whitmire said he revised the measure with help from Abbott's office and that he "had to listen" to Abbott at the time because "our finances were at stake."5,7
The broader shift includes the election of Democrat Gina Hinojosa over Abbott, which will make her Texas' first Latina governor and the first member of her party to hold the office in more than 30 years. ICE remains heavily dependent on local police to find people subject to deportation, working partly through about 2,600 agreements, many in Texas, to deputize local police and other agencies to enforce immigration laws. Hinojosa has criticized immigration enforcement operations, saying at a Jan. 31 rally, "As governor, I will never offer up Texas as a staging ground for operations that terrorize families and enrich his [Abbott's] donors."5,7
The change comes after protests in Houston over the Trump administration's immigration enforcement, including an incident in which an ICE officer fatally shot a Mexican homebuilder this summer and another in which an officer struck a man with a car. A grand jury last week indicted ICE officer Mario Alberto Morales on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Prosecutors say Morales intentionally rammed his car into Miguel Parra Hernandez, whose leg was broken, while ICE has asserted that Parra Hernandez ran in front of the vehicle, an account prosecutors say is contradicted by video. FIEL, which has been working with the family of Parra Hernandez, planned a press conference Friday afternoon on the mayor's announcement.7
