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The Houston Chronicle is reporting that Houston City Council At-Large member Letitia Plummer is preparing a proposal that would crack down on the Houston Police Department’s (HPD) cooperation with ICE by allowing officers to ignore ICE-issued warrants, which they are currently required by law to honor.
As it stands, enforcing those warrants is the only cooperation HPD has extended in the national immigration enforcement effort. Council Member Amy Peck confirmed this, saying: “When they are running warrants on somebody, they are checking all jurisdictions, so they are executing the ICE warrants just as they do with every other warrant.”
That warrant enforcement has become a point of contention between Mayor John Whitmire and more radical members of the Democratic Party, who have recently demanded that Whitmire take action to “resist” ICE.
While the full text of Plummer’s reported proposal has not been released, Peck warned that giving HPD permission to ignore federal warrants could violate state law. “That’s something that we’d have to vet,” she said. “I have some concerns about how we would be able to do it, but it would have to go through the legal department first.”
Peck also addressed reports that the proposal would bar HPD from holding drivers with ICE warrants until federal authorities arrive, calling it another major public-safety red flag.
KTRH reached out to Council Member Plummer’s office by both phone and email, but did not receive a response.