First posted on Instagram · @profilopolitics
Houston Mayor John Whitmire signed an executive order on Friday directing the Houston Police Department to stop notifying U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement when officers encounter people without legal status during routine traffic stops and other low-level encounters, a sharp break from the policy he had defended for more than a year.
Under the order, officers will contact ICE only when a person is arrested on a charge that can lead to jail, or when other warrants are already taking the person to jail, and a background check shows an ICE administrative warrant. "You write a citation or you warn them and they go about their way," Whitmire said at a surprise news conference. "No contact with ICE over nonviolent, non-jailable offenses. It reduces the fear and anxiety."
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."
Whitmire tied the change directly to Tuesday's election results, when Democrats swept Texas' statewide offices and Gina Hinojosa defeated Gov. Greg Abbott. "I've said many times, elections matter," he 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."
Houston Police Chief J. Noe Diaz said the department began putting the directive into effect on Friday and had distributed instructions to officers. "The message is clear. ICE will only be contacted if someone commits a jailable offense," Diaz said. Once a person is booked into jail, decisions about ICE fall to Harris County, which runs the jail.
The order reverses the department's April directive, under which a match for a civil immigration warrant in the National Crime Information Center database required an officer to call a federal support center and request a sergeant. Houston police called ICE 88 times from July through September of this year. The city's first quarterly disclosure documented at least 103 encounters involving ICE, with 19 people transferred to federal custody.
The change also follows months of tension with the state. Houston's City Council moved in April to limit detention on civil immigration warrants; the governor's Public Safety Office said the ordinance breached a certification Houston had signed to receive state grants, and the state attorney general's office opened an investigation under Senate Bill 4, the 2017 law restricting local policies that limit immigration enforcement.
The immigration crackdown in Houston has drawn protests after an ICE officer fatally shot a Mexican homebuilder this summer and another 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. ICE did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the mayor's order.
A day earlier, President Donald Trump was asked in the Oval Office whether he was ready to reinforce the Texas southern border now that the new Democratic governor is removing state manpower from border defense. "I am sure that the new governor is going to want to have security on this Texas border," Trump said. "And I'm sure they'll continue my policy. And if they don't continue my policies, I will." Hinojosa has not removed anyone from the border yet — she is the governor-elect, and Abbott remains in office until January, with the state's border operation, Operation Lone Star, still under his orders.