{"id":253381,"date":"2026-04-16T23:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T23:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/253381\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T23:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T23:23:08","slug":"gov-abbott-threatens-to-pull-2-5-million-in-grants-to-austin-over-apds-ice-rules-houston-public-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/253381\/","title":{"rendered":"Gov. Abbott threatens to pull $2.5 million in grants to Austin over APD\u2019s ICE rules \u2013 Houston Public Media"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776381788_592_.webp\" alt=\"Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is threatening to pull millions of dollars in grants to Austin.\"\/>Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is threatening to pull millions of dollars in grants to Austin.  (Patricia Lim | KUT News)<\/p>\n<p>Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is threatening to terminate roughly $2.5 million in state grants awarded to Austin because of the city\u2019s policies on police cooperation with federal immigration authorities.<\/p>\n<p>This comes just days after Attorney General Ken Paxton <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kut.org\/crime-justice\/2026-04-14\/austin-tx-police-department-ken-paxton-apd-ice-investigation\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">launched an investigation<\/a> into the city\u2019s policies on how it works with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.<\/p>\n<p>Austin police <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kut.org\/austin\/2026-03-05\/austin-tx-police-apd-ice-arrests-rules-trump-administration-immigration-deportation\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">announced new rules<\/a> in March for how officers interact with ICE agents if they suspect someone is in the country without authorization. Those rules require officers to clear any communication with ICE with a supervisor if the suspect has a civil \u201cadministrative warrant\u201d \u2014 or non-criminal warrant \u2014 flagged by ICE. APD is required to communicate with ICE for suspects facing criminal charges, according to the guidelines.<\/p>\n<p>Abbott said the department\u2019s policies \u201cimpede or restrict the notification\u201d to ICE and may be in breach of the grant agreements.<\/p>\n<p>Andrew Mahaleris, Abbott\u2019s press secretary, said this is a safety issue.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA city\u2019s failure to comply with its contract agreement with the state to assist in the enforcement of immigration laws makes the state less safe,\u201d Mahaleris said. \u201cIt can have deadly consequences. Cities in Texas are expected to make the streets safer, not more deadly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a letter to Mayor Kirk Watson and council members, Abbott said that if those grants are terminated, the city will be required to repay the entire amount within 30 days.<\/p>\n<p>The city of Austin has not returned a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>This is a developing story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is threatening to pull millions of dollars in grants to Austin. (Patricia Lim |&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,4921,3759,392,1724,6481,223,287],"class_list":{"0":"post-253381","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news","11":"tag-austin-police","12":"tag-city-of-austin","13":"tag-greg-abbott","14":"tag-immigration","15":"tag-kut","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253381","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=253381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}