Masked immigration raids and unmarked badges are not sitting well at Houston City Hall. On Monday, City Council member Edward Pollard sent a sharply worded letter to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s local field office, urging agents to stop wearing face coverings during enforcement actions and to clearly identify themselves as law enforcement. He argued that the tactics are eroding public trust and leaving residents on edge.
Pollard’s move follows a recent traffic-stop encounter, his office says, escalated when ICE agents allegedly banged on a vehicle’s windows, and a father was tackled and beaten. Pollard has said he is now exploring some kind of formal proposal for the City Council to consider in the coming weeks.
Pollard’s Letter And Local Data
In his letter to Houston’s ICE field office, Pollard calls on the agency to prohibit face coverings during operations and to require officers to “identify themselves as soon as reasonably practicable,” as reported by the Houston Chronicle. The outlet also noted that the Houston Police Department has logged more than 100 calls to ICE since President Donald Trump took office in 2024, most of them stemming from traffic stops.
The Houston Chronicle further reported that Bret Bradford retired as head of the Houston ICE field office on Dec. 31. Multiple messages to a spokesperson for the local ICE office were not immediately returned, leaving key questions about current policies unanswered…