Officers for now should follow a directive Chief Noe Diaz sent out following a press conference last month that requires police to give ICE agents 30 minutes to reach the scene for a noncriminal administrative warrant, according to a department-wide email obtained by the Houston Chronicle.
“The new ordinance will likely require some adjustments to HPD policy,” Executive Chief Thomas Hardin wrote in the email. The note does not say when Diaz might issue a new directive.
The guidance came a day after the council voted 12-5 to eliminate the 30-minute requirement and require police to compile quarterly reports on the department’s cooperation with ICE.
Mayor John Whitmire for months has pushed back on efforts to limits HPD’s work with ICE, saying the city was following state and federal law, but voted in support of the measure, saying he felt it codified existing policy.
Conservative politicians criticized the council’s decision, and the Houston Police Officers Union announced it would not support any council member who voted in favor. In an interview with Houston Public Media, union president Doug Griffith said “that will include the mayor.”
In a Thursday statement, however, the police union said its political action committee, not the union itself, makes endorsements. The PAC endorsed Whitmire in 2023 and “NO ONE has requested that it be retracted,” the statement said.
The Thursday guidance leaves in place a directive Diaz announced after the Chronicle reported that HPD officers in at least two cases had transported drivers to ICE agents, despite ICE administrative warrants being civil documents that do not on their own give officers the authority to make arrests.
Council members felt that policy didn’t go far enough, and brought forward their own proposal under Proposition A, a 2023 city charter amendment that allows any three council members to add an item to a meeting agenda as long as it’s legal. The charter typically gives only the mayor the power to place items on the agenda.
City Attorney Arturo Michel ruled that a provision in their proposal giving officers discretion on when to call ICE agents could run afoul of state law and blocked that from reaching a vote. The three council members “strongly disagreed” with that interpretation, noting that other Texas cities have made it discretionary for their officers to call ICE.
The proposal’s two other provisions were approved Wednesday.