The Houston Chronicle continues to relentlessly go after the city's leadership for its perceived cooperation with ICE. Weeks after the newspaper targeted HPD over increased calls to ICE, the Chron is now calling out Mayor John Whitmire directly. In the latest op-ed, the Chronicle editorial board demands Whitmire "stand up" to ICE like the Democrat mayor of New Orleans has done. "New Orleans just showed Houston how to fight Trump's ICE," reads one headline for the piece. Another says, "If New Orleans can stand up to masked immigration agents, so can Houston."
It is notable that the Chron wants Houston's mayor to "fight" with federal law enforcement at a time when Houston has avoided the violent and dangerous confrontations between ICE and protesters that have happened in other cities like Chicago and Minneapolis. In those cities, local leaders stirred up resistance with anti-ICE rhetoric. Whitmire has taken a different approach here, allowing law enforcement to do their job and remaining largely neutral. But that's not good enough for the Chronicle, which accuses ICE agents of arresting random migrant workers based on how they look. "(The Chronicle) is just trying to evoke an emotional response from the citizens of Houston," says Doug Griffith, president of the Houston Police Officers Union.
Griffith tells KTRH the Chron is playing fast and loose with the facts while trying to stir up emotion. "We're not going to Home Depot, we're not going to pull people out of their jobs, nor have we seen ICE doing that in Houston," he says. "Nobody is coming to us saying ICE is raiding a Home Depot up the street, we have not seen that here. So I don't know where the Chronicle comes off."
"They did the same thing with a story about a 15-year-old migrant child who was supposedly autistic...he has never been tested, they can't prove he's autistic, and yet they use it in several of their headlines," Griffith continues. "It's just another failed attempt for them trying to be relevant as a newspaper."
Griffith says the Chronicle has so far refused to publish his written rebuttals to their editorials.