cities of Austin and Dallas<\/a> \u2013 has come under attack from Republicans.\u00a0<\/p>\nPaxton\u2019s lawsuit alleges Houston\u2019s policy violates a 2017 state law prohibiting cities and counties from \u201cmaterially restricting\u201d cooperation with ICE. And Abbott says the ordinance falls afoul of the terms of Houston\u2019s agreements to receive federal public safety grants that are passed through the state.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals largely upheld that 2017 law, called Senate Bill 4, after a lawsuit questioned whether parts of the bill were unconstitutional. But that case did not set a clear precedent, said Marc Levin, the Houston-based chief policy counsel for the Council on Criminal Justice.<\/p>\n
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\u201cA court hasn\u2019t ruled on whether or not SB 4 is in conflict with the U.S. Constitution,\u201d Levin said. \u201cThere hasn\u2019t been a ruling on the points at issue here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Levin added that there might even be an argument that SB 4 doesn\u2019t apply to Houston\u2019s ordinance.<\/p>\n
As for the paperwork Houston signed to receive public safety grants, one legal expert who reviewed the documents described in the letter Abbott\u2019s office sent Houston questioned whether the conditions apply to the city\u2019s ICE policy.<\/p>\n
The grant document requires cities to report information about immigrants in \u201ccustody\u201d to federal authorities and prohibits cities from restricting cooperation with ICE agents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Krystal G\u00f3mez, an attorney with the Texas Immigration Law Council, said Houston\u2019s ordinance does not deal with people in \u201ccustody,\u201d only those briefly detained, such as during traffic stops. These are legally different situations, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Council Member Alejandra Salinas, one of three council members who put forward the new ICE policy, has urged\u00a0Whitmire to seek a court order temporarily blocking Abbott from taking the city\u2019s grant funding while the case works its way to a trial on the merits.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs legal experts have made clear, the state\u2019s position is unlawful,\u201d Salinas said to Whitmire during a Tuesday council session. \u201cThis ordinance, which we both voted for, is fully compliant with Senate Bill 4. It does not restrict communication with federal authorities or prevent enforcement of criminal law. It ensures officers remain focused on solving crime.\u201d<\/p>\n
In response, Whitmire said the city shouldn\u2019t \u201cplay chicken\u201d with the governor, and that any effort to push back was ultimately doomed in Texas\u2019 GOP-run courts.<\/p>\n
Whitmire\u2019s office did not respond to a request for comment for this story. The mayor and his office have not responded to questions from the Houston Chronicle since August.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘Political theater’<\/p>\n
Friction between state leaders and Texas’ big cities is not new.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Cities and counties have faced significant pushback in recent years from a state government looking to crack down on local control, Levin said. And in many of those cases, local leaders have turned to the courts to mediate.<\/p>\n
Dustin Rynders, legal director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, spoke before council on Tuesday and gave the example of Harris County, which has battled the state on several items.\u00a0<\/p>\n
An appeals court, for instance, just a month ago struck down Paxton\u2019s effort to halt the county\u2019s immigrant legal services fund after Harris County filed a lawsuit against the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you fight, you often win,\u201d Rynders said.<\/p>\n
Both Abbott and Paxton have said they\u2019re eyeing other cities\u2019 policies. Late Thursday Abbott\u2019s office sent letters to Dallas and Austin threatening them with a loss of grant funds over their ICE policies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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In response, Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said<\/a> he \u201cwill not play into this political theater.\u201d Watson said city leaders were confident their rules did not conflict with Senate Bill 4, and that the governor\u2019s threats would actually put public safety at risk. In the state\u2019s letter to Austin, the money at risk was about $2.5 million.<\/p>\nCalls to Dallas, which has\u00a0stricter rules on police cooperation with ICE, about their plans went unreturned as of Thursday afternoon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for San Antonio said that city\u2019s rules are fundamentally different from those of Houston. He said San Antonio does not plan to take legal action against the state and “continues to operate within federal and state law.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor John Whitmire speaks to the media about the city\u2019s immigration policies, after reports that at least two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":{"0":"post-256771","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-houston","9":"tag-houston-headlines","10":"tag-houston-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256771","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=256771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}