Houston police collaborated with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on at least 103 occasions since April, as detailed in the first report mandated by the Houston City Council to assess the partnership between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities.
The quarterly immigration report, released on Friday, indicates that a majority of interactions involving individuals with immigration warrants or “consultations” from ICE concluded with police officers releasing them at the scene. Specifically, 59 individuals, or 57% of those encountered, were released after being detained for an average duration of 39 minutes.
Only 19 individuals, equating to 18%, were subsequently handed over to ICE custody following their encounters with Houston police. The report further noted that 14 individuals faced new charges, while two were transported to hospitals from accident scenes.
The demographic breakdown revealed that nearly all individuals—91 out of 103—identified as Hispanic, with men comprising six out of ten of those encounters.
Almost half of the interactions between the Houston Police Department (HPD) and ICE originated from traffic stops, while another 17 incidents occurred at accident scenes. The remaining encounters were initiated from “calls for service” or during investigations and arrests.
Council member Alejandra Salinas, who was instrumental in the ordinance’s passage, highlighted that the HPD’s average monthly calls to ICE have doubled, with over 100 calls made in just three months. Some detentions lasted nearly two hours, resulting in 19 individuals being turned over to ICE custody. Salinas has requested HPD Chief Noe Diaz to address the City Council to clarify the increase in calls and detention durations while discussing potential changes within HPD in response.
“HPD should prioritize crime-solving rather than performing the duties of ICE,” Salinas asserted, adding, “Even one Houstonian transferred to ICE custody based on an immigration warrant is too many.”
HPD has opted not to comment on the report’s findings.
During the Trump administration’s emphasis on mass deportations, local police have increasingly served as an extension of federal immigration enforcement. The federal government has sought to bolster local law enforcement cooperation by incorporating immigration warrants for approximately 700,000 individuals into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database, a tool frequently used by police to check criminal histories, arrest warrants, and locate missing persons.
All individuals mentioned in the HPD report were included in the NCIC database.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, emphasized that collaborations with local law enforcement are crucial for effectively apprehending individuals deemed criminal illegal aliens nationwide. They cited significant successes, including 40,000 arrests in Florida and a recent operation in West Virginia that resulted in over 650 arrests in just two weeks.
In March, Houston Police Chief Noe Diaz and Mayor John Whitmire instituted a protocol requiring local law enforcement to wait 30 minutes for federal agents to arrive at the scene when they encounter individuals with immigration warrants. However, a month later, the City Council approved an ordinance that rescinded this practice and mandated quarterly reports on the coordination with ICE.
The city was compelled to amend its ordinance following threats from Governor Greg Abbott to withdraw $110 million in public safety grants and an investigation initiated by Attorney General Ken Paxton, alleging that the ordinance violated Senate Bill 4, which prohibits cities from enacting policies that “materially limit” immigration enforcement.
This report emerged shortly after the fatal shooting of 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by ICE officers during an operation in Magnolia Park, a predominantly Latino working-class neighborhood in Houston. City officials clarified that HPD was not involved in that operation.
Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national who had begun the process of legalizing his status, was shot by an ICE officer on July 7 while picking up coworkers in his van for a construction job. ICE claimed that the officer fired after Salgado Araujo rammed one of their vehicles and attempted to run over the agent, a narrative disputed by the other three men in the van.
