By Steve Gorman
Nov 6 (Reuters) – Days after elections that swept Democrats to statewide leadership in Texas, Houston’s mayor ordered his city’s police department on Friday to curtail its cooperation with federal immigration officers, contrary to Republican-backed state law.
Mayor John Whitmire said he was taking the action, after consulting with the state’s newly elected governor, lieutenant governor and comptroller, to “reduce fear and anxiety” across the most populous city in Texas and because “elections matter.”
Under the new policy, police officers conducting routine traffic stops of motorists or detaining someone for some other reason would be barred from alerting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials solely on the basis of a civil immigration warrant against that person.
Police would be permitted to notify ICE only if the person was also being arrested and charged with committing a jailable offense, the mayor said.
“This is the right thing to do at the right time,” Whitmire, a Democrat who voted against the Texas statute banning so-called “sanctuary city” policies as a member of the state Senate in 2017, said at a news conference announcing his executive order.
“I do this to begin a healing process,” Whitmire said, adding he hoped his executive order would become a model for other Texas cities.
Joining Whitmire at the press conference, Houston Police Chief J. Noe Diaz said he supported the change and that his department had already begun to implement the new policy.
Whitmire indicated he was no longer concerned about potential retribution from the lame-duck political establishment of Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who lost his bid for a fourth term to Democrat Gina Hinojosa on Tuesday.
Abbott had threatened to withhold state funding several months ago when Houston City Council members sought to enact a local ordinance giving police officers discretion not to notify ICE when detaining someone who was subject to a civil immigration warrant.
Faced with the potential loss of at least $110 million in public safety grants, city officials retreated, with Whitmire at the time arguing that the city had no choice but to comply.
But on Friday, he said Tuesday’s elections had changed the political equation. He said the order enforces Senate Bill 4, which he opposed as a state senator, in line with its supporters’ stated goal of cracking down on criminals who are in the country illegally.
“We’re taking an interpretation of the law today, working with the newly elected members of the state leadership, in implementing this policy,” Whitmire told reporters. “We don’t want people to worry about their workers, their family members, their students.”
It remained unclear how Tuesday’s midterm elections, in which Republicans lost control of Congress, might alter the sweeping immigration enforcement crackdown launched by President Donald Trump after assuming office for a second term nearly two years ago.
The announcement in Houston came as Trump promoted his longtime aide Stephen Miller, the architect of his toughest policies on immigration and other domestic issues, as White House chief of staff.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Saad Sayeed)
