Overview
- The pared-back ordinance, announced for the April 8 agenda during Tuesday’s public comment session, moves forward without a clause that would have let officers skip contacting ICE on civil warrants.
- It would end HPD’s 30-minute wait for ICE pickup on administrative warrants and require twice-yearly public reports on how the department uses city time and resources on immigration enforcement.
- City Attorney Arturo Michel said officer discretion to not contact ICE would violate Texas’s SB4 and could trigger removals from office and fines, while the sponsors said they disagree and may pursue that change later.
- HPD under Mayor John Whitmire already requires a sergeant to verify these warrants and sets a 30-minute window for ICE response, and Michel says officers must release drivers once the traffic stop ends, a claim the police union disputes.
- Administrative warrants are civil documents used in deportation cases and do not authorize local arrests, and advocates say detentions tied to them erode trust as federal officials have flagged large numbers of such warrants in law-enforcement databases.