Lucio Vasquez/Houston Public Media
Houston Police Department patrol vehicle.
At a Houston City Council public comment session held Tuesday, more than 40 people signed up to speak about what they described as the Houston Police Department’s (HPD) collaboration with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Rob Block, a member of Houston Leads, the coalition of groups that organized the turnout, told Houston Public Media that community members “are very scared when they see any type of law enforcement activity and assume that ICE is involved.”
“It would be really great to be able to reassure Houstonians that the Houston Police Department doing police activity is not involved with ICE,” Block said. “But the current policy that we have … it’s not currently true that we can reassure the community that Houston Police Department is not working with ICE and this national campaign to deport millions of people.”
The protests came after the Houston Chronicle reported HPD called ICE on at least 58 people from January through the end of May, mostly during traffic stops but also after people called 911 for help. In at least one instance, the paper reported, HPD called ICE on a woman after she called 911 to report domestic abuse.
A spokesperson for Mayor John Whitmire told Houston Public Media that the mayor “has consistently stated that the City of Houston is not ICE and does not focus on immigration enforcement.”
“HPD enforces state laws and will hold violators of state law, violent offenders, accountable regardless of immigration status,” the spokesperson wrote. “The Houston Police Department is required to contact any agency that has issued a warrant when an HPD officer has an official encounter with an individual.”
The mayor’s office referred Houston Public Media to HPD for additional information. HPD referred Houston Public Media to the mayor’s office. ICE did not respond to a request for comment.
Speaking before the city council, Maria Breceda argued HPD should stop calling ICE.
“People are too afraid to ask for help because they think that calling the cops means a call to ICE,” Breceda, who spoke in Spanish, said through a translator. “They’re afraid. They’re afraid to ask for help or to even step inside city offices because they’re not sure what’s going to happen.”
Aside from asking people in the chambers to stop applauding, Whitmire and most members of the city council did not directly engage with the speakers. Council Member Mario Castillo briefly described the work of Woori Juntos, one of the organizing groups, as “vital.” Council Member Abbie Kamin asked one of the speakers to share resources with her office about protecting residents from ICE activities at schools and hospitals.
Rishab Chawla told the city council he works as a psychiatry resident doctor at a large psychiatric hospital. He argued the calls from HPD to ICE have a chilling effect not only on crime victims’ willingness to seek emergency services, but also on patients’ willingness to seek help.
“The collaboration between HPD and ICE can erode the trust in our community negatively affecting mental health in many ways,” Chawla told city council members. “Routine activities such as taking one’s child to school, shopping for groceries, going to work, can be nerve-wracking experiences for immigrants.”
In a press release earlier this month, ICE said the agency arrested more than 1,300 people in the Houston area in June. According to data on the agency’s website, ICE arrested about 800 people in June 2024.
Digressing from comments about another item on the city council’s agenda, one of the public speakers, Patricia Moore, briefly celebrated the arrests of immigrants who had committed crimes.
Moore thanked city officials “for the 214 arrests of illegal aliens, child sex predators.” ICE announced the arrests spanning six months earlier this week. The 214 individuals represent a fraction of the more than 40,000 people arrested in the Houston area during that time, according to statistics reported by the Houston Chronicle.
“Thank you, and you got them off our streets,” Moore yelled over booing from other residents in the city council chambers.
According to ICE, the recent arrests occurred during “routine immigration enforcement activities being conducted alongside federal, state and local law enforcement agencies daily throughout Southeast Texas to enhance public safety, national security and border security.” It’s unclear if those local agencies include HPD.
The enforcement ramp-up at the federal level comes as President Donald Trump’s administration has pledged to deport millions of people who came to the country without authorization or who overstayed visas. Because of that context, Rob Block said, any communication between ICE and HPD is “terrifying.”
“It’s something that the city really should vocally be opposed to and stand up to with policy,” Block said.