A meeting scheduled for Friday morning to repeal Houston’s immigration ordinance was abruptly canceled Thursday afternoon and instead the city council will discuss the matter on Wednesday, April 22.
A City Hall staffer who asked to remain anonymous said Friday’s meeting was likely scrapped because Mayor John Whitmire didn’t have the votes to even take up the item. Twelve people, or a two-thirds vote, are needed to suspend the rules to consider bringing up an ordinance within 90 days of its passage or defeat. The ordinance governing how HPD interacts with ICE was approved on April 8, in a 12-5 vote with Whitmire in favor.
According to Whitmire, a “crisis situation” evolved when, after the ordinance passed, Gov. Greg Abbott sent a letter saying the policy was unlawful and therefore violated a grant agreement that Houston has with the state. The city will be responsible for reimbursing $110 million in public safety grant funding if it doesn’t change the policy by April 20, the letter states.
On Thursday, Whitmire issued a press release saying that after discussions with the governor’s office, the deadline to respond to the state’s demands was moved to April 22. Therefore, the council meeting was postponed “to give my administration additional time to continue productive discussions with the governor’s office, city council members, law enforcement, and the community,” Whitmire said. “This strikes a balance to protect our people, essential services, and our finances.”
The mayor claimed earlier this week that some of the grant money has already been frozen, but he hasn’t shown any documentation to explain what that means.
The City Hall staffer said there’s widespread confusion about which grants are being revoked and how money can be “frozen” when it was already issued to the city. A list of 14 grants totaling about $110 million was distributed to department directors and includes $64.6 million for World Cup security, various crime prevention programs, law enforcement equipment and homeland security initiatives.
But some of the grants on the list don’t apply to fiscal year 2026, and when the list was recalculated, the number dropped from $110 million to $26.5 million, the staffer said. Even elected council members don’t appear to know what was said in Whitmire’s conversation with the governor’s office or what he’s planning next week to rectify the matter.
On Wednesday, Whitmire’s office posted an agenda item for the April 22 meeting. Item 11 reads, “AMENDING SECTION 34-41 OF THE CODE OF ORDINANCES, HOUSTON, TEXAS, relating to Law Enforcement Field Encounters and Interactions with Federal Immigration Authorities.” It’s a “caption-only” posting, meaning there are no supplemental documents to indicate exactly what the mayor wants to propose.
Some have speculated that Whitmire will try to alter the ordinance in a way that is satisfactory to the governor’s office without fully repealing it. As it stands, the ordinance eliminates an HPD directive for officers to wait 30 minutes for ICE to pick up people with non-criminal immigration warrants and requires the police department to give regular reports on its interactions with ICE.
The document was drafted by council members Alejandra Salinas, Edward Pollard and Abbie Kamin, all of whom are attorneys, and was reviewed by lawyers with the ACLU of Texas. Kamin was named interim Harris County attorney on Thursday and takes office on June 15, even though she’s running for the permanent seat in November. Her council seat is up for grabs in a runoff set for mid-May.
The trio that proposed the ordinance has steadfastly supported its merit and legality, even as it is questioned by state leaders. Salinas, who was elected in December to fill the unexpired term of former Council Member Letitia Plummer, promised during her campaign to review the law and find a way to make a safer Houston for everyone, including immigrants.
Salinas has said that Abbott’s threat is “straight out of the schoolyard bully playbook” and suggested filing a temporary restraining order — a measure that must be initiated by the city attorney — to halt the action against the city and let the matter be decided in court. “The premise that Houston must either repeal this ordinance or lose funding is a false choice designed to force compliance through fear. Those are not the only options,” Salinas said.
Discussion about the ordinance got heated during a public comment session earlier this week. Houston Police Officers Union president Doug Griffith said, “If something happens and we don’t take somebody in on one of these warrants and they go and kill somebody tomorrow or rape or rob somebody, guess what? We’re on the hook and so is the city because y’all are the ones that enacted this ordinance.”
He then reprimanded Council Member Carolyn Evans-Shabazz for saying she supports law enforcement. The longtime councilwoman responded to Griffith she is elected by the people “and you applied for a job.”
“Your behavior, I want to tell you to your face, was disrespectful,” she said. “I’m not really sure that [police] want to be immigration officers. That’s not what they were hired to do.”
There appears to be consensus among council members that they don’t want to lose the public safety grant funding; it’s just a matter of whether the ordinance, which a majority believes to be lawful, has to be changed in order to keep it. And whether they want to take the political risk of fighting the governor, who some believe is doing the bidding of President Donald Trump.
Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Thursday evening that he’s suing Houston, Whitmire, the city council and Police Chief Noe Diaz. The lawsuit alleges that Houston adopted an unlawful ordinance that violates Senate Bill 4, which prohibits local entities from adopting or enforcing a policy that limits the enforcement of federal immigration laws.
“I will not allow any local official to push sanctuary policies that make our communities less safe,” Paxton said. “Under my watch, no Texas city will be a safe harbor for illegals. The Texas Legislature passed strong legislation that specifically stops the type of lawless ordinance that Houston adopted. Houston has no authority to ignore the Constitution and the laws duly enacted by the Legislature. I’m calling on Houston to immediately repeal this ordinance.”
Whitmire, who voted in favor of the ordinance, is now claiming that he repeatedly warned its sponsors about the “legal and financial risks associated with this approach.” Government watchdogs are also scrutinizing City Attorney Arturo Michel, who flagged one section of the proposal, which would have allowed officers to use discretion when they call ICE, and had it removed because he didn’t believe it was lawful. Michel, however, ultimately signed off on the edited policy that was adopted earlier this month.
Salinas maintains that Abbott is “wrong on the law, and the ordinance is legal.” She’s expected to again bring up the temporary restraining order next week.
“It’s no longer a question about whether the city should go to court. We’re already there,” she said in a statement Thursday evening. “The mayor and city council must vigorously defend the law we voted for and that the city attorney deemed legal. I stand ready to work with my colleagues to defend our laws and protect Houstonians’ constitutional rights.”
ACLU of Texas attorney Caro Rivera Nelson said in an email that Abbott is putting the safety of Texans at risk to score political points.
“The city ordinance supports longstanding protections under the Fourth Amendment,” Nelson said. “By threatening to withhold $110 million in public safety funding over this common-sense ordinance, the governor is not only turning his back on law enforcement; he’s trying to usher in a new era of state overreach.”
The council members who proposed the ordinance and several residents who have spoken during public comment have referenced that Dallas and Austin have similar ordinances about how their police officers interact with ICE and use discretion over when to contact federal authorities — and those cities haven’t been targeted by Abbott. But that changed this week.
On Thursday, the mayors of Dallas and Austin got letters similar to the one issued to Whitmire. Dallas stands to lose $32.1 million in grant funds and $55 million in World Cup public safety funding. About $2.5 million is at risk in Austin.
State Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, who is challenging Abbott for the governor’s seat in November, issued a statement expressing disappointment that state leaders would threaten to “defund the police to punish people who don’t fall in line.”
“Governor Abbott’s threat to decimate Houston’s public safety funding is shameful,” she said. “Holding local leaders hostage with the threat of harming their own constituents is not leadership, it’s political theater that makes government more broken, and Texans are tired of it.”
