![\"an](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ice-agent-getty.webp.jpeg\")
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Trump administration has authorized Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to make arrests at schools, churches and hospitals.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Trump administration has authorized Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to make arrests at schools, churches and hospitals.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
David Dee Delgado\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Six members of the Dallas City Council issued statements over the weekend condemning Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson\u2019s calls for a potential partnership between the Dallas Police Department and federal immigration officials,<\/a> stating that such a collaboration would erode the public\u2019s trust in its local police force.\u00a0<\/p>\n For months, community members have asked for more clarity as to the Dallas Police Department\u2019s level of involvement with local Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations. During a Community Police Oversight Board meeting on Tuesday, Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux assured the board that DPD has not entered into a partnership with ICE, going as far as to say the department turned down a $25 million offer to enter<\/a> into a 287(g) program contract. The program grants immigration enforcement jurisdiction to local law officers, and a new state law will require county sheriff\u2019s offices to adopt the policy next year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Friday afternoon, Johnson sent a letter to several council members criticizing Comeaux\u2019s decision. The memorandum, issued to council members Cara Mendelsohn and Maxie Johnson, chair of the public safety and government efficiency committees, respectively, instructs the two committees to hold a joint meeting with ICE officials and Comeaux to explore whether the\u00a0 287(g) program could be a lucrative opportunity<\/a> for the City of Dallas.<\/p>\n \u201cClearly, participation in ICE\u2019s Task Force Model could provide significant financial benefits to the city. The Dallas Police Department could use these funds to, for example, hire additional officers with no impact on the city\u2019s budget,\u201d Johnson wrote. \u201cDallas might be forfeiting significant direct financial benefits by declining ICE\u2019s offer. Therefore, I am now asking your committees to explore the potential benefits of participating in the 287(g) program.\u201d<\/p>\n The memo also implies that Johnson does not feel the decision<\/a> to opt out of the program was one Comeaux should have been able to make unilaterally, and that DPD\u2019s participation in 287(g) could help keep \u201cviolent criminals off our streets.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n By Saturday, several council members had made it clear that if Johnson hopes to overturn Comeaux\u2019s decision using the horseshoe\u2019s governing power, he faces an uphill battle to do so.\u00a0<\/p>\n Council members Chad West, Paula Blackmon, Adam Bazaldua and Jaime Resendez\u00a0issued a joint statement expressing concern with Johnson\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0\u201cFriday afternoon missive\u201d and support for Dallas\u2019 immigrant community. The council members wrote that entering into a federal contract with immigration officials would have \u201cimplications long past the current administration.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n \u201cSafer communities are built through trust and connection. DPD participating in this program would certainly undermine progress made,\u201d the statement reads.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n On his own social media, Resendez went a step further. Two-thirds of the residents in Resendez\u2019s district are Hispanic or Latino, city data shows,<\/a> and the council member said he could \u201cnever be at peace\u201d while feeling like his constituents could be targeted by the mayor\u2019s \u201cplaying games with people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe mayor often likes to bring up his kids and their safety to humanize himself, but he\u2019s willing to throw Latino kids and their families under the bus by inviting the kind of aggressive, unconstitutional violence we\u2019ve seen from ICE in other cities,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThe silence from those who know better and stay quiet because it\u2019s safer politically is how injustice survives.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n On Sunday evening, council members Jesse Moreno and Laura Cadena issued their own statement that calls for immigration<\/a> enforcement to remain a responsibility of the federal government. Like their colleagues, Cadena and Moreno expressed concerns that entering into a 287(g) program contract could harm trust between Dallas residents and local law enforcement.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe encourage residents to reach out to your elected officials and share your concerns, experiences and perspectives to ensure that community input remains at the center of decisions that affect our city,\u201d the statement said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Moreno and Cadena\u2019s statement leaves eight council members yet to weigh in on the 287(g) program. It is not clear when a discussion on the matter will be scheduled for Johnson\u2019s requested joint committee meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n Although Johnson made waves in 2023 by switching to the Republican Party<\/a> just months after being re-elected as a Democrat, he has been slow to divulge the full breadth of his political opinions.<\/a> Friday\u2019s memo is one of only a few times the mayor has weighed in on immigration, for instance. And although the memo frames the interest in the 287(g) program as a primarily financial one, DPD\u2019s partnership with ICE agents is something that Johnson has expressed support for in part.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, we\u2019d support [deportations]. Of course, we\u2019d stand by President Donald Trump in an effort to get rid of people in our country illegally who have violent criminal records,\u201d Johnson said during a Fox News segment last November.\u00a0 <\/p>\n The mayor declined to clarify those comments when asked by the Observer. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration has authorized Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to make arrests at schools, churches and hospitals.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,1724],"class_list":["post-13581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-immigration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}