Move follows summer ICE shooting, vehicle strike and officer indictment
Houston will limit its cooperation with federal immigration authorities, Mayor John Whitmire said Friday, calling the approach “a new model” of immigration enforcement after Democrats won power in Texas for the first time in decades.
Whitmire said the city would go after immigrants “that pose a danger, not those that are going about their family business, work and education.”
A traffic incident, the mayor said, “will not even … you write a citation or you warn them and they go about their way. No contact with (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) over nonviolent, non-jailable offenses. It reduces the fear and anxiety.”
Details of the change were to be spelled out in an executive order. The move by the nation’s fourth-largest city is one of the first steps to curb ICE’s powers since Tuesday’s election.
Gov. Greg Abbott had closely aligned Texas with the Trump administration to collaborate on enforcing federal immigration laws. He lost his bid for a fourth term to Democrat Gina Hinojosa in Tuesday’s election.
Despite a one-time $75 billion infusion from Congress, ICE remains heavily dependent on local police to find people subject to deportation and turn them over. The agency has done so partly by signing about 2,600 agreements — many in Texas — to deputize local police and other state and local agencies to enforce immigration laws. Texas has been a primary target for ICE arrests.
The Trump administration’s immigration enforcement in Houston has sparked protests after an ICE officer fatally shot a Mexican homebuilder this summer and another officer struck a man with a car.
A grand jury last week indicted ICE officer Mario Alberto Morales on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Prosecutors say Morales intentionally rammed his car into Miguel Parra Hernandez, whose leg was broken. ICE has asserted that Parra Hernandez ran in front of the vehicle — an account that prosecutors say is contradicted by video.