Dallas officials are reviewing police immigration policies after a warning from Gov. Greg Abbott that the city could lose up to $32 million in state funding.<\/p>\n
In a two-page letter sent to the city, Abbott said funding could be at risk if the Dallas Police Department does not repeal its procedures related to how officers collaborate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement on administrative warrants.<\/p>\n
Those warrants are non-criminal and can include issues such as health code enforcement and immigration warrants of removal.<\/p>\n
Sandra Avalos, who regularly assists families near the ICE Dallas Field Office, said the potential funding cut adds pressure to already vulnerable communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe threat of cutting funding is frustrating. Our communities are already low in different directions,\u201d Avalos said.<\/p>\n
Community leaders say the warning raises questions about existing cooperation between local police and federal agencies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Dallas Police Department has always been working with federal agencies,\u201d Rene Martinez said.<\/p>\n
Martinez, who is with LULAC, said the letter appears to conflict with efforts by police to build stronger relationships with residents and reduce violent crime.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe community is beginning to feel comfortable now in reporting crimes, in working with the police,\u201d Martinez said.<\/p>\n
Late Friday, Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux told NBC 5 he believes the department\u2019s current policies comply with state law.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Comeaux said: \u201cWe are in communication with the state to get clarification on what part of our policy they believe is not in compliance, including the appropriate actions to take when officers encounter someone who has an administrative warrant.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cThere may be changes to our policies following these discussions \u2013 but as a police department, we will be in compliance with the law.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dallas is not alone. Austin and Houston also received similar warnings from Abbott this week regarding immigration-related policies.<\/p>\n
Dallas City Council member Jaime Resendez said the letter could further strain trust in his southeast Dallas district, which has a large Latino population.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe city plans on following the law, but I don\u2019t believe we should bend our local public safety strategy to political pressure that undermines trust between our officers and the communities they serve,\u201d Resendez said.<\/p>\n
City officials said they plan to respond to the governor\u2019s letter by next Thursday.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC DFW. AI tools helped convert the story into a digital article, and an NBC DFW journalist edited it again before publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas officials are reviewing police immigration policies after a warning from Gov. Greg Abbott that the city could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-255441","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-dallas","9":"tag-dallas-headlines","10":"tag-dallas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255441","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=255441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}