For a mayor who claimed he would not work with ICE, it seems every time they say jump, he says how high.
The Houston Chronicle had to call experts to ask if HPD detaining people hurts fighting crime. I wrote about it several weeks back; it does not take an expert to figure out that if HPD officers are waiting for ICE to show up, they are not responding to other calls. I wonder if the federal government will reimburse the city for the time HPD wastes.
U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement officials filed a records request with the city of Houston last month for data on every motorist cited for driving without a license since 2023, according to documents obtained by the Houston Chronicle.
A representative for the municipal courts, where the ICE request was directed, said the city had fulfilled the request and sent the files to ICE – a move experts said could help the federal government collect data on people who might be subject to deportation.
The records request, which the Chronicle obtained from the city through its own records request, came after Mayor John Whitmire said the city wouldn’t work with federal agents on immigration enforcement.
“We do not deal with immigration,” Whitmire said in January. “We’re not the Immigration Department. We’re not ICE. We run the city of Houston, we deal with city issues.”
ICE’s records request, filed with the city’s municipal courts department, asked for a list of all people cited for not having a driver’s license between Jan. 1, 2023, and Feb. 28, 2025. The federal agency requested their full names, dates of birth, addresses, make and model of the vehicles and the license plate numbers.
Zenobia Lai, executive director of the Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative, said it was the first she had heard of ICE requesting data in such a manner. She said immigration agents could use the information to identify people who may be living here illegally and locate those who are already in their systems, since immigrants without legal status are not eligible to receive driver’s licenses.
It would not surprise me if many people suddenly decide to find another place to live as soon as Univision and the people start communicating via phone. Yes, those people that many assume are not too bright talk to each other via phone messages. They have a network.
