In a statement shared on X Friday, the group called on the state to take a closer look at the policy, which passed in a 12-5 vote and aims to change how the Houston Police Department interacts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.<\/p>\n
“This ordinance puts law enforcement in an impossible position and creates unnecessary risk for our community,” GOP Chair Cindy Siegel said in the statement. “Houston deserves leadership that stands with law enforcement\u2014not policies that create confusion and increase risk.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to prior Houston Chronicle reporting, the measure eliminates a requirement that officers wait up to 30 minutes for ICE agents to arrive when encountering someone with a civil immigration warrant. It also adds new reporting requirements for ICE referrals.<\/p>\n
But as of Thursday, Houston police had yet changed their procedures.<\/p>\n
The policy shift has already drawn criticism from some city officials. In a joint statement Wednesday, several Houston City Council Members said they oppose the ordinance and warned it could have broader consequences.<\/p>\n
“This ordinance will make officers afraid to do their jobs,” the statement said. “Without clear guidance on timeframes to wait for ICE, it creates confusion for our officers and opens the City of Houston to potential lawsuits.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Houston Police Officer’s Union echoed council members’ concerns noting that the policy could affect law enforcement operations.<\/p>\n
“This organization will not support any council member who supported this position,” their statement said. “Maybe our city council should pay more attention to the actual issues of this city and stop trying to fight national politics at a local level.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chron has reached out to the Governor, the Attorney General’s Office, Mayor John Whitmire’s office, and the Department of Justice for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a statement shared on X Friday, the group called on the state to take a closer look…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1836,88494,1704,56,58,57],"class_list":{"0":"post-245020","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-chronnews","9":"tag-chronpolitics","10":"tag-chronstaff","11":"tag-houston","12":"tag-houston-headlines","13":"tag-houston-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245020","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=245020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}