I am not surprised that is what is happening. John Whitmire has made it clear how he feels about the immigrant community. Going back to what he said about people in the Gulfton area. “Houstonians in Gulfton are largely undocumented immigrants who just want basic services. They don’t want to be part of the Galleria. You think they’re going to be welcome in the Galleria?” – Source
I am not surprised that the Hispanic leadership here in Houston has not criticized him. Too many of them owe their political careers to him. Before running for office, almost without exception, they went to kiss the Don’s ring.
So, what is the Houston Chronicle Whitmire up to now?
Houston police officers in at least two instances have arrested drivers and personally transported them to immigration agents – a new level of cooperation with federal officials that could risk violating the U.S. Constitution and internal policies, according to legal experts.
The details, gleaned from police reports, come days after Houston-area religious leaders appeared before city council to denounce a general uptick in the Houston Police Department’s cooperation with ICE agents. Officers have called federal authorities in more than 154 cases in 2025, an increase of more than 1,000% from prior years.
… Representatives for both Whitmire’s office and the Houston Police Department did not respond to requests for comment about the police encounters with ICE.
Experts’ words echo a warning national law enforcement associations sent out to their partner agencies in the early days of the second Trump administration, warning them that if they did more than call ICE on traffic stops when they encountered the administrative warrants, they’d run the risk of putting their agencies and municipalities in legal liability.
“Arrests on these warrants can only be made by federal agents or officers with immigration authority,” wrote Thomas Kerss, executive director of the Sheriffs Association of Texas, in a February 2025 email. “This could become confusing for some of your employees or lead to unwanted liability exposure if wrongly executed.”
Transporting drivers to ICE custody
In July 2025, officers working traffic enforcement stopped someone for driving with expired registration in southwest Houston, records show.
A search based on the man’s driver’s license returned an immigration violation, and the officers called ICE.
“(The ICE agent) then requested my partner and I to meet him at the Jersey Village Police Station with the suspect to transfer custody,” according to the police report. “…My partner and I placed the suspect into handcuffs and conducted a full systematic search before placing him in our marked patrol vehicle.”