John Whitmire has been called a lot of names since he took office in 2024, but a new one was introduced during a city council meeting on Tuesday: Papa John: the mayor who delivers ICE to detain immigrants with traffic tickets in 30 minutes or less.
Community activist Davis Mendoza Darusman suggested the moniker in reference to Whitmire’s directive with Police Chief Noe Diaz that when an officer encounters a non-criminal immigration warrant, they must call a sergeant to assess the situation and if it’s determined that the matter should be handed over to ICE, the federal authorities have 30 minutes to respond.
Darusman was one of more than 100 residents who signed up to speak at a March 31 public comment session on the matter. Most of the speakers were in favor of a counter-proposal to Whitmire’s directive offered by council members Alejandra Salinas, Abbie Kamin and Edward Pollard. It would codify that HPD is not required to call ICE for non-criminal immigration warrants.
The Salinas ordinance also calls for ending routine traffic stops “when their lawful purpose ends, not when ICE arrives,” and implementing frequent reports from HPD on their interaction with federal immigration agents.
The ordinance is set for a council vote on Wednesday, April 8, and has widespread support from the public, as evidenced by the Tuesday public comment session. But there’s a problem. City Attorney Arturo Michel removed a key provision, the only part of the ordinance, some say, that gave it teeth.
The statement that “HPD is not required to call ICE for administrative immigration warrants, which are civil in nature, not issued by a judge, and do not provide legal authority to local police for arrest or detention” was deemed unlawful for adoption as a city ordinance, according to Michel, who was not elected and serves at the will of the council.
Some begrudgingly accepted the “watered-down” Michel version of the ordinance as better than what’s currently on the books. Others pleaded for the council to add back the provision as an amendment. Darusman said Salinas’ proposal is “a hell of a lot better than the mayor’s current Domino’s Pizza policy.”
“To any council members on the fence about voting yes, voting to protect immigrant residents in a county with the second most immigrants in the nation will not harm your career, except if you vote no,” he said. “If you’re up for re-election next year, be prepared for big glossy mailers with the words, ‘Council member [your name here] voted to protect ICE and voted against immigrants. Voting no will have someone else in your seat in 2028.”
Salinas said the two remaining provisions that were deemed lawful have already been added to next week’s agenda for a vote.
“Please know our focus is to try to pass these two items first and then we will work together with the community to address the additional provision that is deemed unlawful,” she said. “My hope is we can focus on the two provisions that have been approved for lawfulness and then we’ll have the fight on the administrative warrants piece. This is democracy at work.”
Only a few speakers at Tuesday’s council meeting appeared to support HPD’s cooperation with ICE. One resident said she went through the legal process of becoming a naturalized citizen and carries documentation with her. “I don’t think it’s right to hamper law enforcement,” she said. “If ICE stops me, I can show that I’m here legally. If you can’t, then you either need to figure out the process, fix the process or go back to where you came from.”
District C resident Kathy Fletcher said Houston welcomes people from all over the world. “Due to MAGA and ICE overreach, one in seven Houstonians now knows someone detained or deported,” she said. “Nearly 4,000 immigrant children have stopped coming to school out of fear. MAGA and ICE are not on Houston’s side. This ordinance is common sense, and I urge every council member to vote yes.”
A University of Houston student organizer attempted to appeal to the politics of the issue, saying he cast his ballot for Letitia Plummer for county judge in the most recent election because he remembered her attempting to push through an ordinance similar to Salinas’ while Plummer was serving as a Houston City Council member.
“It was because of that inkling of knowledge that I happily voted for her,” he said. “If you cannot pressure the city attorney to capitulate, then the same grace I’m sure many others like me gave Ms. Plummer, I am sure will not be extended to you.”
Many said that Austin, Dallas and Bexar County have adopted policies stating that civil administrative warrants alone are not a lawful basis for local arrest or prolonged detention, and do not require officers to contact ICE. Salinas, Kamin and Pollard — the trio who proposed the ordinance — are all attorneys and said they vetted the proposal through the ACLU of Texas legal department.
“This ordinance does not prevent cooperation with federal immigration enforcement,” Salinas said at a March 19 press conference. “This ordinance does not violate state law. It does not prevent officers from doing their jobs. Rather, it does the opposite. It empowers them to focus on keeping our communities safe.”
Salinas issued a statement earlier this week saying, “We are not safer when officers are taken off the streets to wait on the side of the road for ICE, when families are afraid to report crimes, or when trust between the community and law enforcement breaks down.”
Whitmire has maintained that HPD officers don’t function as immigration agents but follow the law as set forth in Senate Bill 4. Houston, the fourth largest city in America, hasn’t had an ICE surge because the city has maintained decorum and followed the law, Whitmire has said.
Dale Story, a retired political science professor, said he supports the original Salinas proposal and strongly opposed the city attorney’s changes. “This amounts to a unilateral decision by an unelected official beholden only to Mayor Whitmire, essentially an executive veto prior to even being considered by the council,” he said. “While disguised as a legal opinion, this decision is a prolongation of the false and racist rhetoric regarding this community.”
