T wo weeks after Houston City Council passed a measure to limit how police interact with federal immigration agents, the city rewrote it – a reversal so complete it has largely returned Houston to the rules it operated under before the issue consumed City Hall this spring.
The original ordinance sailed through the council 12-5 with the support of Mayor John Whitmire, who framed it as a modest clarification of what Houston police were already doing.
A quarter of Harris County residents were born outside the United States, but Whitmire said his “reasonable and consistent” approach had kept the worst of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown focused elsewhere…