Houston City Council amended a recently passed ordinance that had limited how Houston police officers cooperate with federal immigration agents, shifting the measure after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott warned the city could lose public-safety grant money. On Wednesday, the council voted 13-4 to revise the ordinance following threats from the governor’s office, setting up a different compliance approach as Texas cities continue to navigate federal immigration enforcement.
The ordinance at the center of the dispute had taken effect in a form that changed procedures for interactions involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. The earlier version eliminated a requirement that Houston officers wait 30 minutes for ICE to pick up someone with a nonjudicial administrative warrant. If ICE did not arrive within that window, Houston police would take the detained person’s information and then release them.
Abbott said the revised approach became necessary because of grant terms tied to public safety financing. The governor warned Houston officials that the ordinance, including its limitation on cooperating with ICE, violated the terms of state grants totaling $110 million that Houston received for police and security connected to the World Cup. The cluster of pressure also included Austin and Dallas, where officials faced similar threats related to public-safety funding and the events scheduled there.
Mayor John Whitmire, a Democrat, said he had consulted with Abbott’s office before the council acted, and he pointed to the need to protect the city’s ability to “prepare for (the World Cup)” and patrol neighborhoods. Whitmire said, “We’ve got to have today the restoration of the $114 million,” linking the amended ordinance to maintaining security resources the city depends on during the tournament.
The change approved by the council deleted language highlighting that administrative warrants used by ICE to take people into custody were not sufficient for officers to arrest or detain an individual. Supporters of the original ordinance had argued for tighter local limits on what they described as nonjudicial warrants, but Wednesday’s revisions removed the specific emphasis in the text that differentiated those warrants from warrants signed by a judge.
The legal and political conflict has been running in parallel with the ordinance debate. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had filed a lawsuit against Whitmire and council members, accusing them of violating a 2017 state law that restricts cities from adopting policies that limit the enforcement of immigration laws and that also bans “sanctuary city” policies in Texas. The article reporting described no strict definition for “sanctuary policies” and “sanctuary cities,” but said the terms generally refer to limited cooperation with ICE.
In explaining the governor’s position, Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesperson for Abbott, said the governor expects any local policy Houston adopts to comply with the city’s certification that it will fully cooperate with the Department of Homeland Security. After the vote, Mahaleris said the measure was “a step in the right direction after Houston leaders put public safety at risk with reckless policies that undermined law enforcement,” according to his statement.
Not all council members supported the revisions. Abbie Kamin, one of three council members who had pushed for the original ordinance, voted against amending it, saying the change represented “giving in to bullying tactics from state leaders.” Other members who backed the ordinance earlier, including Edward Pollard and Alejandra Salinas, said they remained hopeful the amendments would not violate constitutional rights and would avoid outcomes such as people being held on nonjudicial warrants.
Outside the council chamber, advocacy groups took different positions on what the amended ordinance would mean. Nikki Luellen, an advocate for criminal justice reform for the ACLU of Texas, called the revised version “a greenlight for deeper collaboration between ICE and the Houston Police Department,” while council member Martha Castex-Tatum said that although the change might feel like “surrender” to some, it amounted to what she characterized as “real stewardship” to protect the city’s finances.
Beyond Houston, Dallas officials said they remained committed to ensuring public safety and would respond to Abbott’s threat by Thursday. Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, another Democrat who has described himself as moderate, said Austin’s local policy complies with state law and warned that Abbott’s threats to cut nearly $3 million would reduce trauma aid for police officers and sexual assault victims. Watson said Austin officials had indicated they could negotiate with Abbott.
The dispute comes as the federal government, under President Donald Trump’s administration, has pursued aggressive immigration enforcement. Whitmire and other local leaders in left-leaning Texas cities have sought to avoid escalating federal scrutiny, and the council vote in Houston shows how state funding threats can quickly reshape local law-enforcement policies tied to immigration cooperation.