<\/p>\n
Felix Torres, 12, holds a sign during a news conference concerning a lawsuit filed by Erick Ruiz Lopez outside Houston Police Department headquarters in downtown Houston on Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026.<\/p>\n
Raquel Natalicchio\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Attorney Randall Kallinen speaks during a news conference concerning a lawsuit filed by Erick Ruiz Lopez, a Honduran man who alleges Houston police unlawfully detained him after a traffic stop until Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrived, outside Houston Police Department headquarters in downtown Houston on Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026. Kallinen represents Lopez in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Raquel Natalicchio\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Attorney Randall Kallinen speaks during a news conference concerning a lawsuit filed by Erick Ruiz Lopez, a Honduran man who alleges Houston police unlawfully detained him after a traffic stop until Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrived, outside Houston Police Department headquarters in downtown Houston on Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026. Kallinen represents Lopez in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Raquel Natalicchio\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Francisco Mendoza, 57, and his grandson, Felix Torres, 12, hold posters during a news conference concerning a lawsuit filed by Erick Ruiz Lopez outside Houston Police Department headquarters in downtown Houston on Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026.<\/p>\n
Raquel Natalicchio\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Attorney Randall Kallinen speaks during a news conference concerning a lawsuit filed by Erick Ruiz Lopez, a Honduran man who alleges Houston police unlawfully detained him after a traffic stop until Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrived, outside Houston Police Department headquarters in downtown Houston on Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026. Kallinen represents Lopez in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Raquel Natalicchio\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Family members, immigrant rights advocates and community members gather for a news conference following a lawsuit filed by Erick Ruiz Lopez, a man from Honduras who said Houston police unlawfully detained him after a traffic stop until ICE agents arrived, outside Houston Police Department headquarters in Houston, Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026.<\/p>\n
Raquel Natalicchio\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
The sister of a Honduran man who is suing the Houston Police Department after officers allegedly detained him<\/a> for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents said Tuesday that her brother\u2019s deportation has left their family in anguish, and pleaded with police to stop cooperating with ICE on non-criminal warrants.\u00a0<\/p>\n The lawsuit filed Monday by Erick Lopez resurfaces concerns that Houston police may be violating residents\u2019 constitutional rights by holding them without criminal charges, marking the latest chapter in a long-running debate over how and whether the city should cooperate with ICE<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n READ MORE: New report reveals how often Houston police turned people over to ICE<\/a><\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Officers held Lopez, 29, for about two hours, the lawsuit asserts, after he allegedly ran a stop sign in June. HPD data show the average traffic stop that doesn\u2019t involve ICE lasts about 18 minutes<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lopez did not have a criminal record, his family and attorney said. ICE administrative warrants are civil, not criminal, documents, and do not by themselves give local police the authority to detain someone.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThat a traffic stop could lead to them taking him like this, and they had him waiting for so long \u2014 \u00a0these have been days of distress,\u201d said his sister said in Spanish. She declined to give her name due to fears of ICE retaliation.<\/p>\n Randall Kallinen, Lopez\u2019s attorney, said that two hours should not be considered a \u201creasonable\u201d amount of time to hold someone for a traffic stop, referring to HPD\u2019s policy governing how long officers should wait for ICE agents to pick up drivers detained with civil immigration warrants.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Houston City Council in April passed an ordinance<\/a> tightening that \u201creasonable\u201d standard, forcing officers to detain someone only “as long as reasonably necessary to complete the legitimate purpose of the initial stop or investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n But the council backtracked two weeks later after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to pull $114 million in grant funding<\/a> from the city. Houston police have now returned to the policy they have used for most of Trump’s second term, with officers waiting a “reasonable” amount of time<\/a> for ICE agents to pick up drivers detained with immigration warrants.<\/p>\n By holding Lopez for two hours, Kallinen said, officers violated Lopez\u2019s Fourth Amendment rights which protect people from excessive detention, regardless of citizenship status.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe mayor and city council had a lot of debate about this, so they were fully aware of this going on prior to their final ordinance,\u201d Kallinen said. \u201cYet we have all of these different cases which are violations of the Constitution, and when a government of any kind passes a law that doesn\u2019t meet constitutional standards, the Constitution wins.\u201d<\/p>\n The police department declined to comment, and referred reporters to the city\u2019s legal department. Mayor John Whitmire\u2019s office, which oversees the department, did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Travis Fife, an attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, said the city should have seen the lawsuit coming<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the very thing we warned about months ago, that the city could\u2019ve protected itself from by adopting and sticking to the ordinance passed limiting cooperation with immigration officials,\u201d Fife said. \u201cInstead, the city cowered under the governor\u2019s threats. And now the plaintiff in this case has paid the ultimate cost of deportation. And the city is on the hook for the potentially huge monetary cost.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n