Houston could lose $110 million in public safety grant funding over a recently adopted city council ordinance that limits police cooperation with immigration agents.
Council Member Alejandra Salinas, an attorney, wrote the ordinance and proposed it with colleagues Edward Pollard and Abbie Kamin under a Proposition A rule that allows three council members to introduce agenda items without the mayor’s approval. Salinas said the threat from Gov. Greg Abbott is “straight out of the schoolyard bully playbook” and punishment for doing what is right.
Because of what Mayor John Whitmire refers to as a “crisis situation” presented by the threat of rescinded grant funds, the Houston City Council will meet at 9 a.m. Friday to consider repealing the ordinance. The meeting is open to public comment.
The ordinance, which eliminates an HPD directive for officers to wait 30 minutes for ICE to pick up people with non-criminal immigration warrants, was approved 12-5 at an April 8 city council meeting. Whitmire, who has consistently claimed that Houston hasn’t had an ICE surge because its officers follow the law and public officials don’t “shoot the bird, talk vulgar and plant seeds of disruption,” voted for the ordinance.
Whitmire said at the time that Houston will continue to follow federal and state laws, and that the ordinance “makes a statement that we listen,” acknowledging the fear that has permeated the community as people who are not violent criminals have been detained and deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The council members who voted against it — Twila Carter, Willie Davis, Fred Flickinger, Mary Nan Huffman and Amy Peck — are known to the public as Republicans, although the offices they hold are nonpartisan. The GOP is currenty the majority party at the federal and state levels, although Houston is considered a blue city.
Whitmire issued a statement Monday evening saying he is “considering all options.”
“Last week, I voted for the revised Prop A Ordinance on Immigration, believing it affirmed our original policy: Houston enforces state and local law, not federal law, and we are not ICE. However, Governor Abbott disagrees,” Whitmire said. “Today, the state notified the City of Houston that it is withdrawing $110 million in public safety grants because the ordinance violates the grants agreements between the state and the City of Houston.”
Whitmire added that Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched an investigation into whether the ordinance violates Senate Bill 4.
“I repeatedly warned the ordinance sponsors, Council Members Salinas, Kamin, and Pollard about the legal and financial risks associated with this approach,” Whitmire wrote in his statement. “This is a crisis situation. The potential loss of state funding poses real challenges for the Houston Police and Fire Departments and will impact public safety services across our city, the 2026 FIFA World Cup preparations and the Homeland Security Department. Our public safety departments rely on a combination of local, state, and federal resources to operate effectively.”
Salinas responded immediately, saying that Abbott’s threat to strip critical public safety funding from Houston is not a surprise.
“Governor Abbott is wrong on the law, and this ordinance is legal. Senate Bill 4 and the governor cannot trump the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution,” Salinas said. “We should not give in to this unlawful intimidation. Threatening to pull resources from police, firefighters, and emergency responders puts politics over public safety and does nothing to make Houston safer. I stand ready to work with Mayor Whitmire and City Council to defend the city’s laws and protect Houston residents.”
Pollard also issued a statement, saying the threats from Abbott and Paxton create “the very risk they claim to oppose.”
“Every Houstonian should be outraged with them putting politics during an election year over people,” he said.
Abbott is seeking re-election to the governor’s office in November. Paxton is facing incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in a May runoff for the GOP nomination to a U.S. Senate seat, and the winner will face state Rep. James Talarico in November.
Harris County Republican Party Chair Cindy Siegel announced late last week that she’d filed a complaint with Paxton’s office over the Houston immigration ordinance.
“This ordinance puts law enforcement in an impossible position and creates unnecessary risk for our community,” the HCRP said in an April 10 statement.
“We warned that reckless decisions like this would have real consequences, and now they have,” Siegel said in a statement on Monday after Whitmire’s announcement. “This ordinance is in direct violation of SB 4 and is exactly the kind of political ploy against ICE to benefit certain city council campaigns that we cannot afford when public safety is on the line.”
Sasha Legette, whose Houston nonprofit Pure Justice advocated for Salinas’ ordinance, said Monday the community fought relentlessly for city leadership to address the issue of immigration enforcement, and they won’t stop now.
“When leaders actually care about an issue, they turn from decision-maker to advocate,” she said, adding that she was proud of the way the matter was handled at the April 8 council meeting. “They were able to make clear arguments last week about why this was important, who was impacted, why it needed to be addressed and also why they were not going to bow down to other people who said they should not be doing this. If the community asks for something that is viable, then we expect them to act accordingly. Their job is to serve the people.”
Political strategist Shea Jordan Smith wrote on X that if Abbott follows through with his threat, he’s not just punishing the Houston City Council, “he’s punishing millions of Houstonians in the largest city in his own state, during an election cycle.”
“Whitmire shouldn’t flinch. City Council should call Abbott’s bluff,” Smith wrote.
Many have argued that the adopted ordinance didn’t really have any teeth once a provision that would have given officers discretion on whether to call ICE was scrapped by the city attorney. In addition to eliminating the 30-minute rule, the new policy requires HPD to make regular reports to the council about its interactions with ICE. Austin and Dallas have city ordinances that allow their officers to use discretion when calling ICE, and neither has been threatened with revoked grant funding — yet.
If the state determines that Houston is out of compliance with its agreement for state grant funds and does not revoke the immigration policy by April 20, the city has to repay $110 million within 30 days of the grant’s termination, according to the letter from the governor’s office. Houston already has a $174 million budget deficit and the council is currently in talks on how to balance the document before adoption in June.
Although it’s unclear whether Whitmire will lead a charge to revoke the ordinance before next week’s deadline, many have already suggested that he’s “flip-flopping” and playing both sides. Pollard, who is rumored to be eyeing a bid for mayor next year, said the mayor has been inconsistent, “saying one thing to constituents and doing another when it counts.”
“The mayor promised Houston wouldn’t be pushed around,” Pollard said. “He staked his credibility on relationships in Austin and being the leader who could hold the line when pressure came. The first real test arrived, and he caved. Letters from Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton should not dictate how the largest city in Texas governs itself.”
