Thirteen Houston City Council members voted Wednesday to amend an ordinance on how local police interact with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, changing a previously approved policy to appease Gov. Greg Abbott, who has threatened to revoke $114 million in public safety grants.
Some of the council members who supported the amendment indicated that they did so with the understanding that it makes no major changes to an ordinance already approved in a 12-5 vote on April 8, but the language is acceptable to Abbott, and therefore, the public safety funding will be secure.
The ordinance approved earlier this month, proposed via Proposition A by Council Members Alejandra Salinas, Edward Pollard and Abbie Kamin, specified that a traffic stop should end when a citation is issued or a warning is given, rather than waiting 30 minutes for ICE to arrive. Officers may detain someone “as long as reasonably necessary to complete the legitimate purposes of the initial stop or investigation.”
The amendment made on Wednesday adds to the aforementioned section, “and for other legitimate purposes discovered during detention.” The 30-minute rule remains omitted.
Mayor John Whitmire said the amended language, negotiated with the governor’s office, allows officers to look at the “totality” of a situation. Kamin said the language is vague and doesn’t provide clear direction to HPD officers.
So a compromise was reached and all is well in Houston? Not even close.
Following three hours of public comment on Tuesday and a spirited two-hour debate among council members on Wednesday, some residents said they were more frustrated and disappointed with Whitmire than they’d ever been since he took office in January 2024.
“This is not a dictatorship; elected officials deserve respect and straightforward answers,” former Councilman Robert Gallegos said Tuesday evening after Whitmire had to be prodded to provide the amendment language he was proposing. On Wednesday, the mayor told a council member he would not be deposed and still had not provided an itemized list of the grants in jeopardy of being defunded, although council members had been asking for it for over a week.
The four who voted against the Whitmire amendment — which several referred to as “the Abbott amendment” — included the authors of the Prop A ordinance and Council Member Tiffany Thomas.
Whitmire said of the amended ordinance, “It follows the law. It reinforces the Fourth Amendment, and it protects the city’s $114 million in public safety funding from the state.”
Salinas attempted to amend Whitmire’s amendment by adding clarifying language but later withdrew it after City Attorney Arturo Michel confirmed the Whitmire amendment didn’t make any substantive changes to what is already on the books. Kamin tried to “tag” the item, or delay a vote for one week, but the motion failed.
Pollard apologized to the public for having to put up with the “circus” that has taken place at City Hall over the past two weeks and criticized the mayor for touting his partnerships with Republican leaders in Austin. “Those partnerships were so strong that right after you voted for the ordinance, the attorney general sued us,” Pollard said. “I’m not sure what partnership looks like in your world, but my partners don’t sue me.”
The issue is about control, Pollard said, emphasizing the city attorney’s assertion that the amendment didn’t make any significant changes. “The intent of what we already passed is still the intent of this particular change,” he said. “The only difference is the governor crafted the language, which I think is a slap in the face to all of us as local elected officials for Houston. It has gotten so petty that the state wants to ensure that it puts its thumbprint on the things we do.”
Since a letter from Abbott’s office arrived on April 13, Whitmire has said that fighting back is “not worth it” and that Greg Abbott’s opinion is the only one that matters. Many of the mayor’s critics have pointed out that Whitmire voted for the ordinance to limit HPD and ICE cooperation and suggest that he’s now “bending the knee” to a Republican governor who some believe is doing the bidding of President Donald Trump to enforce an aggressive immigration policy that targets people who have no criminal history.
Salinas has repeatedly suggested that Houston file a temporary restraining order so the grant funds will be untouched while the matter is litigated in court. Legal experts have said they don’t think Houston’s original ordinance was unlawful, but Abbott’s threat and the subsequent lawsuit from Attorney General Ken Paxton have some worried about potential retaliation and loss of more funding during a time when the city is already facing a $174 million budget deficit.
Salinas told Whitmire last week that Houston has the opportunity to “get a court to verify what all of us know to be true, which is that we honor the Constitution, and the governor’s attempt to not honor the constitutional rights of Houstonians is wrong. As Houston’s leadership, we need to stand up to that.”
Whitmire said he respectfully disagreed and believed that the Texas Supreme Court would not favor Houston’s position, based on history and its previous rulings.
“We are an instrument of state government,” Whitmire said. “The governor controls his funding. It’s really not a legal issue as it is what the governor wants to do with his grant money that the Legislature has given to him. We’re making Houston unsafe every minute that we deny HPD their resources. You know it, and I know it. This is too important to play politics.”
Caro Rivera Nelson, an attorney at the ACLU of Texas, said the “effective repeal of Proposition A is a stain on our state.
“Houston City Council caved to the governor’s threats and intimidation,” Nelson said. “This ordinance would have allowed local police to focus on public safety in accordance with state and federal law. Instead, officers are again left without clear guidance and remain under the same conditions in which local officers were doing ICE’s job — a job they’re not trained for, paid for, or legally authorized to do. Our city councils must defend their authority to enact lawful ordinances that represent what is best for their constituents.”
Last week, 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. The city councils in both municipalities say their ordinances are currently under review.
Salinas said Tuesday she’d been asking for an itemized list of the grants that were put at risk because, according to Abbott’s office, Houston’s ICE ordinance was unlawful. Whitmire said he’d furnish the list and later said he already circulated it last week. “That is a long, drawn-out document and I will get access to it for you,” he told Salinas. “We are working on it. It’s in the legal department. I’ll do my very best to get it for you.”
Dozens of people signed up to speak on Houston’s ordinance amendment, even though they didn’t have the language Whitmire was proposing until Salinas pressed him to release it.
“Since we just received a copy of the proposed ordinance that you would like us to vote on tomorrow, and many of these folks are here today to speak on that very item, can you please explain to the public and print out copies of the ordinance so the public can have them, so that can guide their comment?” Salinas said at the start of Tuesday’s meeting.
Whitmire responded that the copies he gave to council members could be shared with anyone and moved on to the speakers, most of whom knew the mayor was planning to amend the ordinance but were unsure what changes would be made. Copies of the proposal circulated quickly during the meeting and were later posted online.
Five days after the ordinance was approved, Abbott said he’d revoke the public safety grant funding, which covers $64.6 million for Houston’s World Cup security, various crime prevention programs, law enforcement equipment and homeland security initiatives.
Although city leaders have argued over whether Abbott’s action amounted to defunding the police or the city created an insurmountable situation by bucking Republican state and federal direction, those who proposed the ordinance have stayed firm in their assertion that the ordinance adopted earlier this month is well within the law.
The state can’t tell a city how to manage its police department, so the only power Abbott had was to revoke grant money, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston.
“What these police departments are doing is pretty modest,” Rottinghaus said. “They’re not rejecting what the feds are asking them to do. The state’s legal capacity to challenge municipalities on these issues is pretty limited. They want to basically control all of it, but that’s limited by what the law allows. It’s not obvious that they’re going to win. The governor can pull these grants, which is the biggest power and probably enough to get compliance. But to say I’m taking the grants and you have to make up the money elsewhere, that’s not an obvious winnable legal argument in court.”
Nonetheless, Whitmire said the situation created a crisis. Despite overwhelming support for the ordinance as adopted two weeks ago, some speakers expressed concern this week that a loss of $114 million could prompt layoffs or budget cuts for city employees.
Jason Evans, president of HOPE American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 123 said the union’s intent has always been to stand with the community and advocate for policies that reflect fairness and accountability.
“However, with recent developments, serious unavoidable consequences must be considered,” he said, noting that his group initially supported the ordinance but was now asking for it to be repealed.
Kamin clarified that the grants on the chopping block are designated for specific public safety expenditures. “What message did you receive that there would be personnel cuts?” she asked Evans. He replied that based on history, when there are cuts, the money has to come from somewhere.
“They’re not going to lay off police or fire,” Evans said. “Typically, it’s always the municipal workers who get the short end of the stick. I want to make sure that our voice is heard to make sure that municipal workers aren’t the scapegoats of this situation due to a political ploy.”
Kamin said she didn’t think the issue was about politics; it’s about the rule of law. Council Member Thomas said she wanted to squash the narrative that city services would be cut. “We’re talking FIFA, we’re talking third-party money for us to work with nonprofits to provide victim services,” she said. “This is not going to disrupt personnel. I don’t want y’all to feel pressured or the narrative to shape that if we don’t move forward with amending this item that it’s going to disrupt the city. I believe Houstonians are worth more than $110 million. Solid waste workers are not in jeopardy. Houston Public Library workers are not in jeopardy. These dollars are for public safety. HPD is the beneficiary.”
Jacqueline Lucci Smith, a Republican candidate for county attorney facing Kamin in November, said she understands that the council’s obligation is to the continued safety of the community. “We’re concentrating on the wrong issue,” she said, suggesting that the originally approved ordinance initiates a “catch and release program, which is how we got in this mess in the first place, with tens of millions of illegal immigrants crossing the border unvetted.”
A similar statement has been made by Doug Griffith, president of the Houston Police Officers Union, who expressed concern that the ordinance passed on April 8 would allow violent criminals to go free because officers can’t hold them at a traffic stop for ICE pickup.
Salinas issued a statement after Wednesday’s council meeting saying she was disappointed in the vote to amend the ordinance, but “the fight is far from over.”
“From the beginning, this has been about protecting families, upholding the Constitution, and ensuring our officers are focused on solving crime, not doing the job of ICE,” she said. “That has not changed. The legal concerns we raised remain unresolved for this proposal. We cannot ignore that this vote walks back explicit protections that our community fought hard for. I will continue to stand with Houstonians against state overreach, push for stronger protections, and ensure this city defends our constitutional rights.”
