HOUSTON, Texas — Mayor John Whitmire signed a Friday executive order that resets when city officers may phone federal immigration agents, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security pushed back the same afternoon, saying weaker local teamwork could put more federal officers on Houston streets.
Under the revised Houston Police Department practice, an administrative immigration warrant by itself is not enough to trigger a call to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement if nobody is being booked. Officers are still directed to alert ICE after a person who already has that kind of warrant is taken into custody on a charge that can bring jail time.
Chief J. Noe Diaz told the force about the new instructions on Friday as commanders circulated them. Someone stopped for a small traffic infraction who walks away with a ticket alone would not be handed over to immigration agents just because of paperwork from ICE. Diaz added that the department has no 287(g) pact, the federal arrangement that deputizes some local agencies to handle specified immigration work.
A Homeland Security spokesperson said officials were unhappy with city leaders who pull back from working with ICE, arguing that those partnerships help agents arrest people who are in the country illegally and have criminal convictions. The agency warned that if local departments are told not to assist, federal officers will show up more often in public so they can find people let out of jail. Nothing in the statement laid out a concrete plan to add ICE raids or extra details in Houston, and Homeland Security stressed that Whitmire’s order cannot block federal agents from running their own operations here.
Whitmire said he understood state and federal officials might push back and that he was prepared to take that chance. He framed the shift as a step toward lowering fear among residents, including immigrant families who worry about routine contact with local police, and he tied the timing to Tuesday’s statewide vote.
Senate Bill 4 bans so-called sanctuary rules and orders police agencies and lockups to follow ICE detainer requests. Whitmire said he opposed that measure as a state senator and now believes the incoming leadership will put it lower on the list. Democrats took the Texas House on Nov. 3 while Republicans held the Senate. Gina Hinojosa, the governor-elect, beat Gov. Greg Abbott and is due to be sworn in next January. Whitmire said he is acting now, before that class of officials takes the oath.
For a long stretch, officers who encountered someone named in an ICE warrant were told to telephone the agency and hold the person for up to half an hour while agents traveled to the scene. City Council voted in April 2026 to stop detentions that rested only on those warrants, ending the half-hour hold. Abbott answered by threatening to cut off state public-safety dollars, and the council later let officers detain someone for a reasonable period during the wait. Whitmire said most city services lean on state money and that Austin had warned him those dollars could be at risk.
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