{"id":393468,"date":"2025-11-21T00:58:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T00:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/393468\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T00:58:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T00:58:14","slug":"houston-council-member-proposes-change-to-hpd-policy-on-ice-warrants-police-union-calls-it-impossible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/393468\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston council member proposes change to HPD policy on ICE warrants; police union calls it \u2018impossible\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON<\/strong> \u2013 Houston City Council Member Letitia Plummer is pushing to revise Houston Police Department policy on when officers contact federal immigration authorities, a proposal she says would give officers more discretion without violating state law. But the Houston Police Union argues the change can\u2019t happen and isn\u2019t needed, saying ICE has picked up only eight people this year after HPD contacted the agency about open warrants.<\/p>\n

Under HPD\u2019s current general order<\/a>, officers \u201cshall contact U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) if a background check through NCIC\/TCIC (National Crime Information Center and Texas Crime Information Center) returns a possible hit from ICE regarding a wanted or detained.\u201d<\/p>\n

This means that when officers run a person\u2019s name and a warrant appears, administrative or criminal, they are required to contact the agency that issued it, including immigration authorities.<\/p>\n

Plummer wants that requirement softened.<\/p>\n

Her proposal would change the wording from \u201cshall contact ICE\u201d to \u201cmay contact ICE,\u201d allowing individual officers to determine whether the warrant requires ICE involvement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe officer would have the discretion to say, we don\u2019t need to report this to ICE because it\u2019s a low violation,\u201d Plummer said. \u201cVery simple wording, but it changes it tremendously in terms of what their level of discretion is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plummer began reviewing the department\u2019s policies after a June domestic violence case where the victim herself had an ICE warrant.<\/p>\n

Critics have questioned whether giving officers discretion would conflict with Texas Senate Bill 4<\/a>, the new state law allowing law enforcement to arrest people suspected of crossing the border illegally.<\/p>\n

Plummer says the revision is fully compliant.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe revision complies with Texas State Bill 4 by not prohibiting or materially limiting cooperation with ICE, only prohibiting unconstitutional detention,\u201d she said. \u201cWe were very careful about protecting not only our HPD officers but protecting our immigrant community.\u201d<\/p>\n

She stresses the goal is not to restrict police.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not preventing HPD to do their job. I mean, clearly, we want to keep Houston safe on every way possible,\u201d Plummer said.<\/p>\n

The Houston Police Officers\u2019 Union strongly opposes the change.<\/p>\n

Union President Doug Griffith argues officers cannot legally ignore warrants issued by any agency, local or federal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat she\u2019s asking us to do is basically illegal,\u201d Griffith said. \u201cIf you have an open warrant, you have to contact the agency\u2026no matter if it\u2019s Harris County, Fort Bend County, Austin County or ICE.\u201d<\/p>\n

Griffith says officers already follow a consistent and lawful process: they notify the issuing agency, wait for direction, and document the encounter if that agency declines to take custody.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they want them, we\u2019ll hold them\u2026 If not, we document it and let them go,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s exactly what we do with ICE.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also argues changing HPD\u2019s policy could risk federal and state funding.<\/p>\n

Griffith says Plummer\u2019s proposal is unnecessary because the number of people actually detained due to ICE warrants is extremely small.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo the best of my knowledge, we haven\u2019t had but eight individuals that were stopped and ICE wanted them,\u201d Griffith said. \u201cEverybody else has been document and release. That\u2019s what we\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says the low number shows HPD is not engaged in mass detentions tied to immigration status.<\/p>\n

Plummer needs one more council member\u2019s signature to advance the proposal for formal discussion.<\/p>\n

Even then, she does not expect the idea to go to a vote immediately.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t expect this document to get voted on,\u201d she said. \u201cI expect this to now be a formal conversation to where we refer it to committee.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is no clear timeline yet for when, or if, the proposal will be taken up by the full city council.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 Houston City Council Member Letitia Plummer is pushing to revise Houston Police Department policy on when…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":393469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[4345,51079,22287,186934,14259,186933,24099,358,3187],"class_list":{"0":"post-393468","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-houston","9":"tag-houston-city-council","10":"tag-houston-police","11":"tag-houston-police-union","12":"tag-hpd","13":"tag-immigration-and-custom-enforcement","14":"tag-immigration-enforcement","15":"tag-texas","16":"tag-tx"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115584978492713289","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}