Summary
Houston is limiting when police officers contact ICE about illegal aliens.
Houston’s mayor says incoming Democratic state leaders will deprioritize the sanctuary cities ban.
Reduced enforcement could encourage Texas cities to retreat from ICE collaboration.
AUSTIN, Texas—When Houston Mayor John Whitmire announced last week that he would scale back police collaboration with ICE deportations, he seems to have inadvertently disclosed the approach the state’s newly elected Democratic leadership will be taking on immigration.
Whitmire signaled that Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa, Lt. Gov.-elect Vikki Goodwin, and Attorney General-elect Nathan Johnson among others, are messaging that they might not make use of two Republican-passed anti-sanctuary laws.
During a Nov. 6 televised press conference in which he said that the Houston Police Department would be limiting when officers contact ICE, the Democratic mayor revealed that he changed the ICE policy after learning from members of the new Democratic state leadership in private consultations that they were not likely to make use of a Republican-passed “sanctuary cities” ban law.
He said that Texas state leaders will deprioritize the 2017 Senate Bill 4 (SB-4), which allows top state officials to make use of fines and jail time to force local governments to turn over illegal aliens to ICE.
“I’ve been in contact with the new statewide elected officials, and SB-4 is not a priority of the new statewide elected officials,” said Whitmire, who left his legislative seat in December 2023 to become mayor.
“This is the right thing to do at the right time,” he said later during the press conference. “I was on the floor when Senate [Bill] 4 passed. I voted against it.”
If Whitmire’s account of his conversations is accurate, the new government’s apparent plan not to enforce the sanctuary cities ban has invited other Democrat-led Texas cities, such as Austin and San Antonio, to consider scaling back cooperation with ICE. A falling domino effect would damage President Donald Trump’s mass deportation program in a state with the nation’s second largest illegal alien population—about two million without legal status.
By some accounts, other cities are already moving to act before new Texas leaders take office in January.
The 2025 ICE Deputization Law
Attorney General-elect Johnson told Austin media outlet KXAN the day after his election that he’ll exercise “discretion” in enforcing another law all three new state leaders had voted against just last year, SB-8.
That law requires most of the state’s sheriffs and their personnel to be federally deputized by ICE (under Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act), to make immigration arrests on the agency’s behalf during the normal course of duty or by alerting ICE of aliens in jail custody.
Texas leads ICE’s expanding 287(g) deputization program, with 527 agreements involving 429 law enforcement agencies as of mid-September. As of Nov. 4, 202 of the 232 sheriffs’ offices subject to the mandate have deputized law enforcement personnel.
But Johnson, who voted against SB-8 as a state legislator, now suggests he is disinclined to sue sheriffs who fail to comply with it.
“If somebody has legitimate law enforcement reasons for not having a 287(g) agreement … then I have the discretion to recognize that they are charged with keeping the public safe, and I don’t want to take steps that would prevent them from keeping the public safe,” he told KXAN.
Johnson also indicated that he may discontinue the Attorney General’s Office’s own participation in 287(g), which he has described as a “political stunt,” a “waste of time,” and a “misdirection of resources.”
“I presently do not see a reason to keep that agreement in place,” he told KXAN after the election.
Now other cities are considering changing their own policies.
Blue City Rebellion
Most major cities in Texas are led by mayors, city managers, and city council members who align with the Democratic Party, including Houston, Austin, Dallas, El Paso, and San Antonio.
City leaders are as predisposed against the sanctuary ban law today as they were in 2017 when they perceived that Republican leaders would enforce compliance with it.
In the hands of Republican governance, SB-4 has deterred city mayors, managers, and police chiefs in Texas cities from adopting ICE noncooperation policies. The law authorizes the Texas Attorney General to fine cities, levy Class A misdemeanor charges carrying up to a year in jail against officials, and potentially remove officials from office.
Blue cities took note when Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton won a $300,000 settlement from San Antonio in which the city admitted no fault. This was the first enforced SB-4 enforcement action. The city’s mayor, Ron Nirenberg, allegedly told city staff not to contact ICE after 12 people believed to be illegal aliens were discovered.
But now, city leaders are feeling free to reduce their cooperation with ICE too.
For his city, Whitmire has issued an executive order that would relieve police from serving administrative ICE warrants on illegal aliens during routine duties and calling ICE to pick them up. They’d still be told to alert ICE when transporting aliens arrested for jailable offenses.
Other city leaders are following suit.
Austin’s Mayor Kirk Watson on Nov. 6 asked the police chief and the city manager to revise the city’s policy governing ICE warrants, while council members are calling for immediate retreat from ICE collaboration. In San Antonio, Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones said she will ask the city manager to explore options for ending the police department’s cooperation with ICE altogether, according to The San Antonio Current.
Enforcing Laws They Hate
Gov.-elect Hinojosa, Lt. Gov.-elect Goodwin, and Attorney General-elect Johnson have not publicly commented about the mayor’s revelation of their conversations.
But Hinojosa, in voting no to SB-4 with Whitmire against SB-4 in 2017, proved a fierce opponent of the anti-sanctuary law.
Neither Goodwin nor Johnson had been elected in 2017. But in the years since the sanctuary-ban law was passed, both have made their views on immigration enforcement quite clear and last year voted against SB-8. They have issued statements that raise questions about whether they will enthusiastically enforce either law.
“Texas requires our law enforcement agencies to cooperate with ICE. But that agreement assumes ICE operates within the law,” Goodwin said in February calling for an emergency committee to review the legality of the deputization program. “When concerns arise about deaths, detentions, and lack of transparency, state leaders have a responsibility to step back and evaluate whether this partnership is in the best interest of Texans.”
So far, ICE’s response to these spiraling developments is short: “We remain disappointed that sanctuary politicians seek to limit cooperation with ICE, as our law enforcement are simply fulfilling their sworn duties to serve and protect our communities,” the agency told the Associated Press.