It seems that elections have influenced the decisions of several elected leaders, including Houston mayor John Whitmire, who changed his mind overnight regarding the topic of the Houston Police Department (HPD) collaboration with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Months ago mass deportations began that Donald Trump promised during his campaign and that gradually caused fear and terror in entire communities in various places across the country. They caused deaths and the deportation of people with no criminal records; here in the Houston region they were occurring and the mayor always refused to speak about the issue.
He never wanted to confirm whether the HPD collaborated with ICE and always dodged talking about the topic; he always discussed how important it was to receive federal funds and to follow state laws, but nothing was clear.
Many questioned him: journalists, community leaders and even city councilors; however, his attitude was the same and he left nothing clear.
Meanwhile, videos of detentions were increasingly common on social networks, people were being detained in the streets of Houston; it was even said that on some occasions HPD patrols took people to detention centers.
Then came initiatives from council members such as Alejandra Salinas, who sought to establish a clear way and limit collaboration between the local agency and the federal one.
Salinas’s proposal passed the council vote, but the pleasure lasted only a short while because it immediately yielded to pressure from state authorities such as Governor Greg Abbott. Whitmire backed off and promoted an amendment to the law and then it became less clear what the collaboration would be and how it would be handled.
That is how things stood and, while the HPD delivered reports of its interactions with ICE, the immigrant community lived in fear of being detained by local police and falling into the hands of that federal agency.
It was not until November 3 when the elections achieved Texas electing Democratic leadership and the power of the Hispanic vote became evident, showing that they were fed up with Trump’s immigration policy, that Whitmire changed the tone and even his stance.
Just three days after the Democratic victory in the Lone Star State and as the map turned blue, Whitmire called a press conference where he said he had presented an executive order to drastically reduce the collaboration between those two agencies.
Applause for this decision did not take long; many cheered the new rule for the Houston police, but warned that it is not the end of the fight for the rights of the immigrant community in the city.
Thus three city council members, Alejandra Salinas, Edward Pollard and Tiffany Thomas, took the initiative for this rule imposed by Whitmire to become part of the city code as a permanent law and not be dissolvable in the future by another mayor.
Whitmire supposedly does not agree with this and the debate continues; what we do know is that he will seek reelection and probably this decision will weigh on his political future.
