{"id":416419,"date":"2026-08-25T17:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T17:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/416419\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T17:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T17:24:08","slug":"no-chief-no-answers-hpds-first-ice-contact-report-draws-scrutiny-without-diaz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/416419\/","title":{"rendered":"No chief, no answers: HPD’s first ICE contact report draws scrutiny without Diaz"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON \u2013 Houston\u2019s police chief was a no-show Tuesday as the city\u2019s Public Safety Committee received its first-ever quarterly immigration enforcement report \u2014 and both council members and the public wanted to know why.<\/p>\n

HPD Division Manager Jim Mallard appeared before the committee in place of Police Chief Noe Diaz, presenting data on how Houston police have interacted with federal immigration authorities since the city amended its HPD-ICE cooperation ordinance earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Council Member Alejandra Salinas repeatedly questioned Mallard about why he \u2014 and not Diaz \u2014 was presenting the report. No satisfactory explanation was given. <\/p>\n

Some council members openly questioned whether Diaz\u2019s absence was connected to an active lawsuit against the city. A Honduran man who was deported from the U.S. earlier this year claims HPD officers unlawfully detained him for two hours before he was taken into ICE custody<\/a> \u2014 nearly three times the 39-minute average detention HPD reported Tuesday.<\/p>\n

First numbers, no baseline<\/p>\n

The report \u2014 the first required under the amended ordinance \u2014 showed HPD recorded 103 immigration-related National Crime Information Center hits during the quarter. An immigration-related NCIC hit occurs when a routine police check of an individual\u2019s name or information in the FBI\u2019s central database returns a flag from Department of Homeland Security immigration databases.<\/p>\n

Every one of those 103 hits resulted in contact with Immigration and Customs Enforcement \u2014 a 100% contact rate.<\/p>\n

Of those detained, 57% were released on scene, 18% were transferred to ICE custody and 13% faced new charges. About 1.9% were transferred to a hospital. An additional 8% of NCIC hits were ultimately not confirmed. The average detention length was 39 minutes.<\/p>\n

Because this is the first quarterly report under the ordinance, there is no previous data to compare against. The 103 contacts now serve as the baseline against which all future quarterly reports will be measured.<\/p>\n

What the ordinance requires<\/p>\n

The amended ordinance requires HPD to provide each City Council member with a public memorandum detailing the use of city resources for immigration-related enforcement activities. Information that could compromise an active criminal investigation or prosecution is excluded.<\/p>\n

The report is required to include anonymized records of each instance where officers inquired into immigration status and each instance where officers contacted federal immigration authorities. Required data points include the reason for the stop or detention, whether an administrative warrant, detainer or criminal warrant was involved, detention start and end times, the race and ethnicity of those detained, the number of officers involved and the general location by ZIP code.<\/p>\n

\u2018Stop delivering us to our murderers\u2019<\/p>\n

The data landed differently for those in the audience.<\/p>\n

Ronaldo Salgado, son of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo \u2014 who was fatally shot by ICE agents earlier this year \u2014 was present at the meeting.<\/p>\n

Merlyn Raske, a volunteer with FIEL, an immigrant-led organization, called on the committee to give Salgado\u2019s family answers.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur people are getting killed, getting kidnapped,\u201d Raske said.<\/p>\n

\u201cStop delivering us to our murderers,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

One woman described visiting a Haitian church the day before the meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur communities are living under constant fear. This past Sunday I visited a Haitian church, members are terrified,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Chief\u2019s absence draws scrutiny<\/p>\n

The Public Safety Committee meeting came weeks after KPRC 2\u2019s own reporting on the fatal ICE shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The quarterly report is the first formal, public accounting of HPD-ICE interactions since the ordinance was amended under pressure from Gov. Greg Abbott\u2019s funding threat earlier this year. <\/p>\n

No official explanation was given for Chief Diaz\u2019s absence.<\/p>\n

Executive Chief Thomas Hardin, who was also listed as a presenter for the meeting, was not heard from during the presentation. <\/p>\n

We are working on getting more details. Meeting is still on going as of now. <\/p>\n

Breaking News Alerts<\/p>\n

More Stories Like This In Our Email Newsletter<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 Houston\u2019s police chief was a no-show Tuesday as the city\u2019s Public Safety Committee received its first-ever…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373513,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57,2543,1829,53799,81133],"class_list":["post-416419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-houston-police-department","tag-ice","tag-immigration-laws","tag-noe-diaz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416419","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=416419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}