Not Mayor Whitmire, who already has the surrender documents drawn up.
Mayor John Whitmire
Mayor John Whitmire says the city must walk back its new policy limiting Houston police officers’ cooperation with federal immigration agents after Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to pull $114 million in grants over the measure, saying fighting back would be “a waste of time.”
But some council members are calling on the mayor to challenge state leaders – particularly since Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued the city over its policy. Legal experts say Houston could have a good case, and that a judge could block Abbott from following through on his threat.
[…]
Paxton’s lawsuit alleges Houston’s policy violates a 2017 state law prohibiting cities and counties from “materially restricting” cooperation with ICE. And Abbott says the ordinance falls afoul of the terms of Houston’s agreements to receive federal public safety grants that are passed through the state.
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals largely upheld that 2017 law, called Senate Bill 4, after a lawsuit questioned whether parts of the bill were unconstitutional. But that case did not set a clear precedent, said Marc Levin, the Houston-based chief policy counsel for the Council on Criminal Justice.
“A court hasn’t ruled on whether or not SB 4 is in conflict with the U.S. Constitution,” Levin said. “There hasn’t been a ruling on the points at issue here.”
Levin added that there might even be an argument that SB 4 doesn’t apply to Houston’s ordinance.
As for the paperwork Houston signed to receive public safety grants, one legal expert who reviewed the documents described in the letter Abbott’s office sent Houston questioned whether the conditions apply to the city’s ICE policy.
The grant document requires cities to report information about immigrants in “custody” to federal authorities and prohibits cities from restricting cooperation with ICE agents.
But Krystal Gómez, an attorney with the Texas Immigration Law Council, said Houston’s ordinance does not deal with people in “custody,” only those briefly detained, such as during traffic stops. These are legally different situations, she said.
Council Member Alejandra Salinas, one of three council members who put forward the new ICE policy, has urged Whitmire to seek a court order temporarily blocking Abbott from taking the city’s grant funding while the case works its way to a trial on the merits.
“As legal experts have made clear, the state’s position is unlawful,” Salinas said to Whitmire during a Tuesday council session. “This ordinance, which we both voted for, is fully compliant with Senate Bill 4. It does not restrict communication with federal authorities or prevent enforcement of criminal law. It ensures officers remain focused on solving crime.”
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Dustin Rynders, legal director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, spoke before council on Tuesday and gave the example of Harris County, which has battled the state on several items.
An appeals court, for instance, just a month ago struck down Paxton’s effort to halt the county’s immigrant legal services fund after Harris County filed a lawsuit against the state.
“When you fight, you often win,” Rynders said.
Both Abbott and Paxton have said they’re eyeing other cities’ policies. Late Thursday Abbott’s office sent letters to Dallas and Austin threatening them with a loss of grant funds over their ICE policies.
In response, Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said he “will not play into this political theater.” Watson said city leaders were confident their rules did not conflict with Senate Bill 4, and that the governor’s threats would actually put public safety at risk. In the state’s letter to Austin, the money at risk was about $2.5 million.
See here, here, and here for the background. Kirk Watson was also once a State Senator, in case anyone was wondering. The obvious downside to fighting is that we could lose, and that is a lot of money at stake. The majority of it is actually a federal grant to cover costs related to the FIFA World Cup, and it’s not clear to me how Greg Abbott has a say in that. I suppose another approach to that might be to say fine, we just won’t provide any cops for those events, but I will admit that would have some untenable risks. The downside to not fighting is, as the Chron editorial board correctly notes, that we outsource our governance to Greg Abbott. I think if we’re going to give him the final say on what we are and are not allowed to do in Houston, the least we can do is make it official and give him all of the responsibility for running the city. It would cut down on the amount of time he has to marvel at AI hallucinations on Twitter, but no one said this would be easy.
UPDATE: Mayor Whitmire is now talking about modifying the ordinance instead of repealing it, which would also take nine votes. We have no details as of this writing as to what that means, so I can’t tell you any more than that.
It’s becoming abundantly clear – Whitmire needs to go.