Photo: JHVEPhoto
Last week, Houston City Council passed a new ordinance that changed how the Houston Police Department is allowed to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The new ordinance has been blasted by conservatives and members of the law enforcement community.
As of right now, HPD is still waiting 30 minutes for ICE agents to pick up those who are found to have ICE warrants. But if that policy changes due to the passage of the ordinance, it could be a disaster for HPD and the City of Houston as a whole.
Doug Griffith, the president of the Houston Police Officers’ Union, warned against any significant changes, saying: “We’re supposed to contact on any outstanding warrant we get a hit on. Not doing that could cause us to lose our NCIC/TCIC status.”
Griffith went on to say that he believes this is just the first step toward turning Houston into a sanctuary city, which could prove to be a disaster for public safety due to the inevitable loss of state and federal funding. “We just got $10 million for police cars because the city didn’t have the money for them,” he said. “If you don’t think that kind of thing will end when we become a sanctuary city, you’re sadly mistaken.”
According to Griffith, this move was pushed by radical members of the Houston City Council as part of their efforts to raise their own name recognition ahead of future elections, and the inevitable consequences of the move were completely ignored by them.