{"id":420923,"date":"2026-08-30T08:46:37","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T08:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/420923\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T08:46:37","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T08:46:37","slug":"houston-police-leaders-face-backlash-for-missing-city-council-discussing-immigration-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/420923\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston police leaders face backlash for missing City Council discussing immigration report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1788079596_332_default-image.png\" alt=\"Livestream\" class=\"livestream-poster-image\" data-v-0c9d18f6=\"\"\/>       <\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">HOUSTON &#8211; The Houston Police Department&#8217;s top leaders did not attend the city&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.houstontx.gov\/council\/committees\/publicsafety.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Public Safety Committee<\/a> meeting Tuesday where the department&#8217;s quarterly immigration report was discussed.<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">Police Chief Noe Diaz and Executive Chief Thomas Hardin were originally listed to present the immigration report, but their absence drew criticism from community and city council members.<\/p>\n<p> Houston Police absent from city council meeting  <\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">&#8220;Many of the community were ready to hear from HPD an explanation as to what&#8217;s going on,&#8221; said Council Member Alejandra Salinas, At-Large position 4. &#8220;It was such a shame and a disappointment to many of us that they were a no show and that they refuse to answer most questions.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">Mayor John Whitmire said that the decision for the law enforcement leaders to not attend was advised by the city&#8217;s attorney citing&#8217;s legal position.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">&#8220;No one wanted to be here more than the chief,&#8221; said Whitmire. &#8220;We have to be prepared in court. We understand the process of deposing someone and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.houstontx.gov\/legal\/about.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Arturo<\/a>, who represents the city and this council, and we&#8217;re the defendants, advise the chief and his staff not to comment. He anxiously awaits the disposing of this case so he can be here and answer any and all questions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">From April through June, Houston Police documented 103 immigration-related contacts, according to the first <a href=\"https:\/\/www.houstontx.gov\/council\/4\/fy2026-q4-immigration-report.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Quarterly Immigration Report. <\/a>Of those, 59 people were released at the scene, while 19 were transferred into ICE custody. The average detention lasted 39 minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/hpd-ice.png\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" fetchpriority=\"auto\" width=\"932\" height=\"524\" data-v-2fe2fe3e=\"\"\/>  <\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"KRIV\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-94395e58=\"\">The backstory:<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">In April, Houston City Council <a href=\"https:\/\/www.houstontx.gov\/council\/4\/immigration.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">passed an ordinance<\/a> that ended the department&#8217;s 30-minute wait period based on civil ICE administrative warrants and required quarterly reports on Houston Police interactions with ICE.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"KRIV\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-94395e58=\"\">What&#8217;s next:<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.houstontx.gov\/council\/committees\/public-safety\/2026-Public-Safety-Committee-Calendar.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">next Public Safety Committee meeting<\/a> is scheduled for Sept. 14.<\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: Information provided by City of Houston Public Safety Committee recording.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox26houston.com\/tag\/us\/tx\/houston\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-94395e58=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Houston<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox26houston.com\/tag\/top-stories\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-94395e58=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Top Stories<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox26houston.com\/tag\/organization\/texas-dps\/houston-police\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-94395e58=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Houston Police Department<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON &#8211; The Houston Police Department&#8217;s top leaders did not attend the city&#8217;s Public Safety Committee meeting Tuesday&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57,8063,223,1827,2785,2053,216,393],"class_list":["post-420923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-houston-police","tag-news","tag-organization","tag-texas-dps","tag-top-stories","tag-tx","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420923","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=420923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}