I’m annoyed by this, but it’s not the end of the line.
Letitia Plummer
A City Council proposal that would have given Houston police officers discretion over calling federal immigration officials during traffic stops has officially met its demise.
The policy change was pitched by Council Member Letitia Plummer under Proposition A, a charter amendment that allows any three council members to put forward agenda items as long as they’re legal.
The proposal would have given HPD officers a choice on whether to call U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials during traffic stops, and would have prevented HPD from holding those they pull over on the side of the road until those federal officials arrived.
Plummer had the backing of Council Member Tarsha Jackson, but still needed one more person to sign on before the item appeared on a council agenda. It also needed approval from the city’s lawyers to make sure it was legal.
Plummer’s proposal came with a stringent timeline – she leaves office in January after filing in the election to replace Lina Hidalgo as Harris County Judge, meaning she needed to forfeit her seat as an at-large council member. Lawyer Alejandra Salinas will be sworn in sometime in January to take over Plummer’s position.
The item could have still made the agenda if the councilmember got the support she needed before she left office, though she would have not been able to participate in discussions as an elected official.
Now, Plummer does not believe the proposal will gain any more traction once she leaves office.
Plummer struggled to get the last signee she needed without a legal opinion after concerns emerged about how it would work with SB4, a state law that requires local law enforcement to comply with immigration enforcement. The city attorney did not immediately return a request for comment on whether Plummer’s proposal passed legal muster.
Plummer said Tuesday she was disappointed at the lack of support she received.
“Being able to redefine the relationship between ICE and HPD would’ve been beneficial,” she said, adding that her intention wasn’t necessarily to get the proposal passed, but to have a public conversation in a council committee about HPD’s working relationship with ICE.
[…]
Immigration lawyers have questioned the legality of the city’s current policy, saying the prolonging of traffic stops beyond their purpose required the suspicion of a new crime. An ICE warrant, they said, did not provide enough basis.
The story doesn’t mention when now-former CM Plummer put forth this proposal, so I can’t tell if the City Attorney may have dragged his feet or if this was a late addition to the pipeline that just ran out of time. It may also be that the City Attorney didn’t see the need to take action in the absence of a third Council member supporting the proposal, since it wasn’t an official agenda item yet, and it may be that other potential supporters of this were waiting to see what the City Attorney said before being willing to sign on. I’m annoyed, but how much I’m annoyed may vary.
Be all that as it may, there’s no reason why this can’t be picked up again, perhaps by new CM Alejandra Salinas. As far as I know, in the absence of a sponsoring CM leaving Council, there’s no deadline on these things. And if the City Attorney is in fact ducking the question, then find some outside lawyers, or maybe a law professor or two, who could fill in some blanks. This was a good proposal, and unless it’s clear that it would conflict with state law it should be pursued. I will be even more annoyed if this just gets forgotten.