{"id":253541,"date":"2026-04-17T01:15:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T01:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/253541\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T01:15:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T01:15:18","slug":"abbott-threatens-to-terminate-austin-houston-grants-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/253541\/","title":{"rendered":"Abbott threatens to terminate Austin, Houston grants"},"content":{"rendered":"

TEXAS \u2014 Gov. Greg Abbott is continuing to ramp up his fight against Austin and Houston after the cities changed their policies on how police interact with federal immigration officials.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, the City of Houston passed an ordinance to minimize its police cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Soon after, Abbott sent a letter to Houston officials threatening to discontinue $110 million in Public Safety Office (PSO) grants over the policy change.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Abbott sent a letter to Austin Mayor Kirk Watson similarly threatening to terminate its PSO grants totalling $2.5 million. If the grants are pulled, the city will be required to repay the state within 30 days.<\/p>\n

Last month, the Austin Police Department updated its General Orders<\/a> to say that officers are \u201dnot authorized to make an arrest or detention based solely on an ICE Administrative Warrant.\u201d The new policy also requires officers to talk to a supervisor before contacting ICE.<\/p>\n

The change came after city officials faced public backlash over the deportation of a mother and child<\/a> after a 911 call in Austin. The officers who responded to the call alerted ICE after seeing an administrative warrant in a federal database. An administrative warrant is a formal document issued by a federal agency, such as the Department of Homeland Security, authorizing federal law enforcement to make an arrest, and it is not signed by a judge.<\/p>\n

\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. It can have deadly consequences,\u201d Abbott\u2019s press secretary, Andrew Mahaleris, said in a statement. \u201cCities in Texas are expected to make the streets safer, not more deadly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Houston Mayor John Whitmire called a special City Council meeting after receiving the letter from Abbott and called it a \u201ccrisis situation<\/a>.\u201d That meeting was scheduled for Monday, April 20, but it has since been postponed to Wednesday, April 22, after the governor\u2019s office extended the city\u2019s deadline to respond.<\/p>\n

Whitmire said in a statement that the postponement will give the city \u201cadditional time to continue productive discussions with the Governor\u2019s office, City Council members, law enforcement, and the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis strikes a balance to protect our people, essential services, and our finances,\u201d Whitmire said. \u201cAs I said earlier, this is a crisis. We have already lost state grant funding, which affects the Houston Police and Fire Departments, public safety services across our city, preparations for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and the Department of Homeland Security. Our public safety departments rely on a combination of local, state, and federal resources to operate effectively. We are making significant progress through constructive conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is also investigating both Houston and Austin over their policy changes and whether they violate Senate Bill 4, which was passed in 2017 to ban sanctuary cities in the state and prohibits local officials from adopting policies that stop officers from cooperating with immigration officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Later on Thursday afternoon, Paxton filed a lawsuit against Houston city officials, including Whitmire, saying the city’s ordinance “blantantly violates” SB 4.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI will not allow any local official to push sanctuary policies that make our communities less safe,\u201d said Paxton in a news release. \u201cHouston has no authority to ignore the Constitution and the laws duly enacted by the Legislature. I\u2019m calling on Houston to immediately repeal this ordinance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEXAS \u2014 Gov. Greg Abbott is continuing to ramp up his fight against Austin and Houston after the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1657,1658,2160,132,134,133,56,1974,223,287,27,2053],"class_list":{"0":"post-253541","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-app-latest-local-state-politics-stories","9":"tag-app-local-state-politics","10":"tag-app-top-stories","11":"tag-austin","12":"tag-austin-headlines","13":"tag-austin-news","14":"tag-houston","15":"tag-katharine-finnerty","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-politics","18":"tag-texas","19":"tag-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253541","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=253541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}