Mayor John Whitmire has directed the Houston Police Department to only report individuals arrested for “jailable offenses” to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a move he calls “a healing process.”
In his executive order issued Friday, Whitmire clarified that the arrested individuals must also have an ICE administrative warrant, which is a civil document that authorizes ICE to arrest individuals suspected of violating immigration laws.
Whitmire had previously cooperated to some extent with federal and state immigration policies under President Donald Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott.
When Houston City Council passed an ordinance earlier this year that limited HPD’s contact with ICE, Whitmire revised the ordinance, using language that seemed to paint the immigration agency in a more agreeable light and soften the limits.
One instance of this revision included changing the definition of an “ICE administrative warrant” from a document that is “not probable cause for a criminal arrest” to a document that commands “the arrest of an individual either to conduct removal proceedings or for removal.”
However, Whitmire recently indicated that he cooperated with Trump and Abbott to preserve funding issued to the city of Houston, and that change regarding policies on ICE contact was possible under the new Democrat “blue wave.”
“We cannot run the city government without state and federal grants, bottom line,” Whitmire noted. “Up until today, what was best is work with the leadership that is being replaced. What’s best is for me to talk to the newly elected leadership.”
Whitmire’s executive order defines a “jailable offense” as a “criminal offense for which the person is lawfully subject to detention in jail upon arrest, rather than an offense for which release on citation is required or customary.”
“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,” the order reads.
“If a person is not otherwise going to jail on new charges or other warrants, Department personnel shall not contact ICE regarding that person,” according to the order.
Houston Police Chief J. Noe Diaz also clarified that HPD does not participate in the ICE 287(g) program, which “permits the delegation of certain immigration enforcement functions to state and local law enforcement agencies.”
“I do this to begin a healing process, reduce fear and anxiety across our community,” Whitmire stated during Friday’s press conference.
Recent data has indicated that over half a million illegal aliens reside in the Houston area. As of 2021, Harris County alone accounted for the second largest number of illegal aliens in the United States at about 481,000 illegal aliens, beaten only by Los Angeles County’s 951,000.
A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security expressed the agency’s disappointment in “sanctuary politicians” in a statement to Texas Scorecard regarding Whitmire’s decision. “Every day, ICE officers are putting their lives on the line to arrest violent criminal illegal aliens in accordance with federal law. The Supremacy Clause makes it clear that sanctuary politicians do not control federal law enforcement.”
“Seven of the top 10 safest cities in the United States cooperate with ICE. When politicians bar local law enforcement from working with DHS, our law enforcement officers have a more visible presence so that we can find and apprehend the criminals let out of jails and back into communities,” the spokesman added.
The DHS spokesman also reiterated the option of self-deportation available to illegal aliens, wherein they will receive “$3,000 and a free flight to self-deport now,” and listed several illegal aliens convicted of various crimes in Houston, including Guatemalan national Julio Camey, who was convicted of “sex offense against a child.”
