Even if Houston officials wanted to end the existing coordination with ICE, city attorney Arturo Michel said, they could be held liable “both civilly and criminally” because of state law throttling cities’ abilities to curtail collaboration with the federal immigration agency.
Mayor John Whitmire defended the Houston Police Department’s coordination with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during the city council meeting on Wednesday, responding to pushback from a council member that was prompted by a news story.
At a conference hosted by political pundit Bill King on Saturday, the Houston Chronicle first reported, Whitmire said, “I’m not going to say that we’re not cooperating with ICE because that’s frankly not true.”
The statements came after Whitmire for months downplayed HPD’s work with ICE after the Chronicle reported Houston police officers called ICE more than 100 times this year to alert the federal agency of encounters with people who had active immigration warrants, compared to nine times in 2024…