{"id":258034,"date":"2026-04-20T15:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T15:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/258034\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T15:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T15:56:08","slug":"mayor-john-whitmire-says-houston-may-amend-ice-policy-not-repeal-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/258034\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor John Whitmire says Houston may amend ICE policy, not repeal it"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The council on April 8 eliminated a requirement that officers wait 30 minutes for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to arrive when they encounter someone with a civil immigration warrant.<\/p>\n<p>In response, Gov. Greg Abbott <a href=\"https:\/\/www.houstonchronicle.com\/politics\/houston\/article\/whitmire-abbott-ice-policy-22204589.php\" data-link=\"native\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">threatened to pull $114 million in public safety grants<\/a> if the city did not revoke the policy. Whitmire, who had voted to approve the policy, then said it must be reversed, and called a special council meeting last Friday at which council was to vote on repealing the measure.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Whitmire then cancelled the Friday meeting, saying his team had spoken with Abbott\u2019s office and secured a deadline extension while the camps negotiated an amendment to the policy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;ll work this weekend and find acceptable language that protects Houston&#8217;s residents and our finances, and follow state law, so the governor will continue to send monies to Houston,\u201d Whitmire told Houston Public Media on Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Council members will now consider the issue at their regular meeting on Wednesday. The initial plan to repeal the measure would have taken 12 votes. Amending it would take 9 votes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The language for that amendment has yet to be posted publicly.<\/p>\n<p>Attorney General Ken Paxton also has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.houstonchronicle.com\/politics\/houston\/article\/whitmire-abbott-council-ice-vote-22206835.php\" data-link=\"native\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">sued Houston<\/a> over its new ICE policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The council on April 8 eliminated a requirement that officers wait 30 minutes for U.S. Immigration and Customs&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":{"0":"post-258034","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\/258034","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=258034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}