he told<\/a> other members. \u201cMy responsibility is the safety of Houstonians.\u201d<\/p>\nHe also said, \u201cthe governor means business\u201d and City Council member Alejandra Salinas\u2019 recommendation to go to court and get a restraining order to stop the governor from cutting funding was a moot point.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve already lost the money,\u201d he said. \u201cThe state Supreme court will not favor our position.\u201d The city government is \u201can instrument of state government. The governor controls his funding. This is not a legal issue. This is about the governor having discretion over how he spends grant money allocated to his office by the legislature.\u201d<\/p>\n
Salinas argued the decision the city council made was legal and constitutional and the governor\u2019s decision \u201cdoes not supersede the constitutional right of Houstonians.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
At issue is whether Houston police officers should be allowed to contact ICE when they encounter an illegal foreign national with an administrative warrant. The warrants are issued after the individual has already gone through due process and a federal judge has issued a deportation order. The individuals are not Houstonians nor are they U.S. citizens. They are foreign nationals illegally living in the U.S. whom a federal judge has determined should be removed from the country. The federal immigration law on which the judge is ruling does not apply to U.S. citizens, neither do removal orders or deportation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Whitmire said the issue may be public safety this time but could be public health or another issue in the future. \u201cNow is the time to be responsible and not play politics,\u201d he said. \u201cHouston\u2019s safety depends on it. We do not have local monies for this replacement of grant money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Houston Police Union President Doug Griffin said officers had more than two million contacts with civilians last year and only 256 citizen complaints and 74 incidents related to ICE.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t just Democrats who voted for the proposition, Republican Councilman Julian Ramirez also did.<\/p>\n
At a Republicans of Southwest Houston meeting this week at which The Center Square attended, Ramirez explained his vote. He said it was primarily because he believed it would make residents safer. As a former Harris County prosecutor for more than 30 years, Ramirez said he \u201cprosecuted countless murders, capital murders, and aggravated assault deadly weapon cases\u201d where illegal foreign nationals \u201cwere often necessary witnesses.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said he knew they were in the country illegally but he \u201cneeded their cooperation to keep violent criminals behind bars. Many were reluctant to testify for fear of being detained at court. I had to convince them to trust that neither I nor anyone in court would call immigration authorities to come get them. I secured many convictions using their testimony. Never once did I call immigration authorities to turn them in. Every other prosecutor I knew did exactly the same thing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Audience members disagreed with his perspective and many expressed outrage.<\/p>\n
Texas\u2019 U.S. senators, both from Houston, have weighed in on the vote and have said they hope the city council will rescind the resolution.<\/p>\n
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn said the city council\u2019s new policy \u201cis not only absurd \u2013 it\u2019s dangerous\u201d and HPD officers should be able to fully cooperate with ICE.<\/p>\n
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz said the vote was \u201creally unfortunate\u201d and city council members \u201cwould rather have [illegal foreign nationals] released into Houston\u201d than detained and deported, he told<\/a> Fox 26 News. \u201cI think most Houstonians don’t agree with that and I think most Texans don’t agree with that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(The Center Square) \u2013\u00a0Houston Mayor John Whitmire has called an emergency city council meeting on Friday for members…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1477,56,58,57,1724,1225,27],"class_list":{"0":"post-252322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-border","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-houston-headlines","11":"tag-houston-news","12":"tag-immigration","13":"tag-public-safety","14":"tag-texas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252322","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=252322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}