Overview
- At a Wednesday council meeting, Mayor John Whitmire rejected what he called inflamed rhetoric and said HPD does not enforce immigration status checks during traffic stops or club stings.
- Whitmire said people with arrest warrants are submitted to the agency that issued them, and police union president Douglas Griffith described policy as calling ICE only on outstanding immigration warrants.
- City attorney Arturo Michel cautioned that attempts to curtail such coordination could expose Houston to civil and criminal liability under Texas law.
- Council Member Mario Castillo announced he would withhold district-funded HPD overtime pending assurances on ICE coordination, then said he received clarity after Griffith’s explanation, while candidate Alejandra Salinas criticized a lack of transparency.
- Former Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg praised Whitmire’s approach, as prior reporting showed HPD alerted ICE more than 100 times this year about encounters tied to immigration warrants compared with nine in 2024.