Yfat Yossifor/KERA
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a candidate for U.S. Senate, gestures to the crowd at his Election Night watch party on March 3, 2026.
After the Houston City Council passed an ordinance prohibiting police officers from detaining people or prolonging traffic stops due to civil immigration warrants, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Friday he will “absolutely stop” the city’s implementation of the new policy.
On Wednesday, the ordinance passed in a 12-5 vote with support from Mayor John Whitmire. Spearheaded by council members Alejandra Salinas, Abbie Kamin and Edward Pollard, the ordinance clawed back a policy requiring officers to wait 30 minutes for agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to respond when the department notifies the agency about civil immigration warrants. Officers are still required to contact ICE about all warrants.
In an appearance on KSEV, a conservative talk AM radio station in Houston, Paxton argued the measure “couldn’t be more explicitly barred” under state law.
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The city’s policy runs parallel to that in San Antonio, where officers also must contact ICE about civil immigration warrants — though a San Antonio Police Department spokesperson said there’s no time constraint on how long officers should or should not wait for the agency to respond. It falls short of policies in Austin, where supervisors have authority over whether or not to contact ICE, and in Dallas, where officers in the field have discretion and cannot wait for ICE.
The Houston Police Department turned over 87 people to ICE in 2025, according to chief Noe Diaz.
“I think there were people on both sides of the aisle that saw it as strong and valid and not in violation of state law,” said council member Edward Pollard, responding to Paxton’s remarks. “I would hope that we don’t use pending elections to govern Houstonians and Texans and understand that their lives and circumstance mean more than the result of an election.”
Pictured are Houston City Council members Edward Pollard, left, and Carolyn Evans-Shabazz.
Paxton — who is about a month away from a runoff election in his bid to replace John Cornyn in the U.S. Senate — pointed to Senate Bill 4 (SB4). Passed by the Texas Legislature in 2017, it outlawed local municipalities from curtailing police departments’ collaboration with ICE.
Paxton characterized Houston’s measure as “spitting in the face of that law.”
Seth Chandler, a law professor at the University of Houston Law Center, said “the stakes are actually very high here,” because elected officials can face removal from office under SB4.
“You now appear to have a definitive decision from the Houston City Council, and you have a statement, at least, by the attorney general that he doesn’t find Houston’s actions to be permissible under the law,” Chandler said. “And so I suspect we’re going to see a real fight emerge.”
Chandler said the matter is “particularly complicated” because of ongoing litigation over the state’s immigration-related laws. There are also conflicting claims over police officers’ obligations and constraints when they encounter individuals with administrative immigration warrants, which, unlike criminal warrants signed by a judge, are civil in nature and issued by ICE itself.
Before Paxton’s interview on Friday, Harris County Republican Party Chairman Cindy Siegel said she “filed a formal complaint” with his office about the city’s new policy.
“Once there’s a complaint filed by citizens, and I’m pretty sure there’s a complaint sitting in my office right now,” Paxton said. “These elected officials — it’s a ‘shall’ be removed from office. It’s not up to me to decide.”
He did not lay out a concrete timeline for his next action, and his office did not immediately respond to questions from Houston Public Media.
Paxton previously announced an investigation into the city of Dallas in March for its stated approach to immigration enforcement matters. The investigation — like many announced by his office — consisted of a public records request to the city.
Salinas’ office declined to comment. Staffers for Kamin and Whitmire did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Dominic Anthony Walsh / Houston Public Media
Council member Alejandra Salinas listens to City Attorney Arturo Michel on Apr. 1, 2025.
In a set of memos in March, Houston City Attorney Arturo Michel argued the measure to restrict officers from holding people due to civil immigration warrants was not only lawful under SB4, but mandated by the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures.
“The Fifth Circuit and Texas courts have consistently held that routine traffic stops are investigative detentions that must be justified by reasonable suspicion and limited in scope to the original purpose of the stop,” Michel wrote in a memo obtained by Houston Public Media. “This principle applies equally when ICE administrative warrants are discovered during routine warrant checks. Peace officers may question individuals about immigration status during traffic stops if such questioning does not prolong the detention beyond the time reasonably required for the stop’s original purpose.”
In the same memo on March 26, Michel deemed a separate proposal from the council members unlawful. They wanted to give officers discretion about whether or not to contact ICE about civil immigration warrants, similar to the policies in Austin and Dallas. Michel said the change would run afoul of SB4 — an opinion the three council members promised to fight this week.
Related: Houston police union walks back pledge to not endorse Mayor Whitmire after HPD-ICE policy change
Even before Paxton’s comments, the measure triggered political tremors in Houston.
On Wednesday, leadership of the Houston Police Officers’ Union pledged to withhold support from Whitmire — who the union endorsed in 2023 — before walking back the threat on Friday.