New Houston order limits police contact with ICE

We're going to get right to it with this major shift in how Houston police, they're going to work with federal immigration authorities. Mayor John Whitmire, he signed this executive order earlier today and it limits when HPD officers can contact ICE. So what do you think about this? Again, you can text me 713-581-9914. We know this announcement is drawing some mixed reactions. So we have Fox 26's Karis Belger here to talk about what's changing and really why the mayor is doing He's doing this right now, Karis. Well, the mayor was very Very honest about it. He said that he'd been hearing complaints from the community for some time, but he also acknowledged some of this had to do with the recent election results. The mayor says this is about reducing fear and anxiety in Houston's immigrant communities. And again, acknowledging the election did have something to do with this, said he's looking forward to working with the folks in Austin about this as well. But immigration advocates are also saying they're welcoming the change, but they're also a little suspicious of the timing. I also spoke with the head of the police union who says he was blindsided. So let's first break down what this new policy means. So HPD will contact ICE for an arrest for a jailable offense or if a person has an administrative ICE warrant. They will not contact ICE for any minor traffic violation resulting in a citation or any administrative ICE warrant without an arrest. So again, we heard from Mayor Whitmire about this earlier. He says really this is about healing the rift that he says has happened between I do this to begin a healing process, reduce fear and anxiety across our community. I also do this knowing that elections matter. This is all about politics and we're caught in the middle of that. I hate the fact that law enforcement is caught in the middle of all this political gaming. Kirsten, you mentioned about immigration advocates. Obviously, they're probably happy about a change like this. What did they have to say? Well, they say it's a step in the right direction. They've been pushing for this for months, most notably after the death of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. And of course, even more recently with the incident involving Miguel Parra Hernandez. But they also mentioned that this is about rebuilding trust. That's what the mayor said. But it's still going to take years to build that trust back. For a lot of time, the fear was that HPD was cooperating with ICE. And this created a lot of A lot of uncertainty among communities. I also reached out to the ACLU of Texas. They say they are welcoming this change, but they are going to continue to watch how this new policy is enacted. It goes into effect today, and the mayor says he's hoping to see more changes and perhaps do something more permanent once the new administration comes in January. No, what's really interesting is I have talked to some police officers with the Houston Police Department who say this might not be as big of a change as people might think because Right now they have to wait 30 minutes. Yes, and usually ICE doesn't come during that time. So an additional amount of time wouldn't matter because of the response time that they have from what they're seeing out in the field. Absolutely, and that's actually what I heard from the head of the police union as well. He said there were already regulations in place for how officers would deal with any sort of detainment interaction with ICE, but also any sort of warrant. So he says a lot of this doesn't really go against what... Officers were already doing it, and he argued that it may have been politically motivated. All right, Karis, thank you so much for breaking it down for us.