Hello, and welcome to the Texas Tribune trip Cast for April twenty first, twenty twenty six. My name is Matthew Watkins, editor in chief of the Texas Tribune, and my co host Eleanor is on assignment taking a nap. I'm not entirely sure by some hotel room. Yeah, just lounging. No, she's an assignment in North Texas and she'll be back next week. So this week I am joined by our politics reporter al Hunter Serrano. Hello, Aleandro, And I'm joined
by Houston Chronicle City hall reporter Abby Church. Hi, Abby, thanks for joining us.
Thank you so much for having me.
Happy to see you guys, Yeah, great to have you. Today. We're talking about the latest iteration of Greg Abbot versus Texas Citi's, you know, a common fight in Texas, and this time the fight is over police department's cooperation with ICE. Last week, Abbot threatened to hold two hundred million dollars in state fund for Austin, Dallas, and Houston back from those cities over his allegations that were breaking state law by not cooperating with ICE. The cities are having varied responses.
It seems like maybe today Abby, we will hear from Houston about whether it's going to change its policies, but we're going to sort of just break this down a little bit and talk about what's happening. Abby. I want to start with you. Could you just like explain for us what the policy is right now in Houston in terms of working with ice and how if it all has that sort of shifted over the last you know, few weeks.
All right, so about it was a couple of weeks ago now, But the Whitmyer administration, Mary John Whitmyer, he's our mayor. He used to be a senator for the last like fifty years. But he introduced this policy that would require ice. Goodness, sorry, my brain. It would require Houston police officers to wait on scene for thirty minus for immigration officials to come to the scene when there's an administrative hit through the NCIC system when cops are
pulling someone over. And that policy was quickly undone by a proposal that was brought forward by a trio of council members under Proposition A. As you two, you probably know, Houston has a strong mayor system, but voters passed a charter amendment in twenty twenty three that allows council members a little bit more power in putting policy on the
agenda and getting that passed. So effectively, what that policy did when the council members passed it was eliminate that thirty minute requirement and basically reinstated all of the Fourth Amendment requirements by federal law essentially.
Okay, And this decision by Whitmyer to impose this policy, this thirty minute policy, what did he say about that at the time?
Uh, you know, he Oh goodness, I can't remember off the top of my head. I was not the one at that presser. It was my colleague Matt to grud But I mean they had basically an introduce set policy at a time after the Houston Chronicle had reported that two people were handed over to ice officials by police officers, which is obviously a shock to everybody. And I mean the way that they approached it, it was basically something that needed to happen, is what they said at the time.
Gotcha. And the pushback I assume is, you know, there is a lot of you know, Texas's big cities lean a little bit more blue than the rest of the state. There's a lot of concern among voters, people you know, in the Democratic Party on the left side of the political spectrum about you know, what Ice is doing out there. This was essentially like a pushback by those members from you know, feeling as though, you know, a city like Houston should not be participating. Do I have that right, Yeah?
I mean I think some of it is that. I mean, naturally you have that with the blue cities versus the red state leadership. But I like, I think what a lot of this comes down to too. I mean a lot of it's really confusing, right because you have other city across the state, other large cities that have passed similar policies, but just did it in a slightly different
way than Houston did. So when you're looking at Austin and Dallas, what they did was not necessarily take this to the public and have the council members vote on it in public. They did general orders through their police department, so it was a little bit more under the radar.
So the way that Houston handled this was a little bit more public, a little bit more out there, and I think that is what caused a little bit more attention on Houston and why the hammer fell on Houston a little bit sooner than it did other cities that had past policies that were that went a little bit farther than Houston's.
Oh Hunter, Governor Abbot argues that this violates sbfore the twenty seventeen version of SB four tell us a little bit about that law.
We have two very controversial immigration related s before. Yeah, I mean this is before it was called the sanctuary city ban. And it's interesting that we're at this point now. We consider the federal politics as well, because Senator Charles Perry had tried to pass this ban going back twenty eleven and it had repeatedly failed, and he pretty much didn't want locals, whether it's a city council or police department or campus police department, to tell officers, hey, don't
work with ice. And it was kind of like in a stude observation on the Senator because it obviously became a big tool for locales around the country when President Trump was first elected, and it kind of was local
governments kind of became the source of the resistance quote unquote. Well, in twenty seventeen, this law passes and it says that locals can't limit cooperation with ICE, and it's kind of goes through a legal battle, and ultimately the understanding is that you can't tell officers, hey, you're not allowed to ask people about immigration status, which is kind of like
the bare minimum, you know. You also they can't you know, they can't add bureaucracy, they can't limit the actual cooperation with ICE, you know, whether it's detainers or what have you, and it kind of goes untested. Was this big legal challenge, as I mentioned, resolved eventually and then there's never really any hoopla until now. And it was kind of like one of the big questions. I remember when the president
was first elected. We did a story the Immigration Reporter and I about kind of like, well, how our local government's gonna respond, And no one really wanted to draw the wrath of either Austin or the White House. But here we are.
Now, right, Yeah, I want to talk about that sort of political dynamic here in a little bit. But let's talk a little bit about just the impact of pulling these funds. First, Abbot has made the threat against Houston. I believe it's around one hundred and ten million dollars in grants, one hundred.
And fourteen million dollars. Actually Land sold it a little bit, Yeah you.
Thank you, Austin a much smaller amount. I think around like two point five million Dallas thirty two million dollars in grants plus public safety funding for the World Cup, which is of course happening in the DFW area soon. That amount is fifty five million for the World Cup funding. What is this money supposed to do? And how does Abbot have the ability to pull it back or does he?
Yeah?
I think Abby, you might also understand, like the weeds a little more. But in particular with Houston, the Governor's office has a sub office called the Public Safety Office, and they administer a bunch of grants to government's up and down the state, and they fund all sorts of things for local police departments. And in this case, Mayor wit Meyer is saying it's going to affect FIFA planning and safety. But Abby, I don't know if you know a little more details.
Yeah, yeah, I do. So Basically, we're kind of in the same situation as Dallas with that FIFA money, but the city was awarded around sixty five million dollars to cover FIFA security and basically what that's going toward in Houston, we have a really big problem with overtime over at the police Department and the fire department and solid waste.
But when you're looking about at World Cup and how that's going to impact the police department when you already have a problem with overtime, this sixty five million dollars in particular was going to be very instrumental to helping the city not further itself into the budget hole that
it's already kind of found itself in. But yeah, I mean, like officials over here are kind of the inquitment impossible situation if I'm being honest, Like you have people being asked like, Okay, are you going to stick with this policy or are we going to risk losing one hundred and fourteen million dollars when the city doesn't have that financial wherewithal to even replace it if they did lose it.
You know. So there's so many things that are going to go unfunded, and that includes things like protection for people who are victims of domestic violence. That includes things for like street gang grants. So they have a couple of different things, but it's a lot of things that are like really out in the committee community that are going to affect people who are also victims of crime.
So what is Witmeyer saying? Now, how did he respond to this threat?
So basically it's been a little bit of a back and forth. But as soon as this threat came out, he talked to a couple of reporters and he was of the opinion that the policy needed to be corrected. He turned it back on the council members who put forward the proposal, and he basically said that he had warmed them of the ramifications that the state could get involved. And since then it has just been a back and forth of Okay, what exactly are we going to do.
But all of this has been a little confounding to some people because what Myer initially voted to support the proposal, right because he said that it made a statement that they were listening to the community and following through on their concerns.
I'll just note here, Abby, you don't have to comment on this if you don't want to, but of course you mentioned said to a couple of reporters, worth noting that mayor Withitmeyra refusing to talk to the biggest newspaper in the city. Disappointing decision by the mayor there.
Yeah, it's been some time, right, Abby.
Yeah, yeah, so his has not talked to us since August twenty twenty five. But I know he'll answer questions sometimes just on the fly, like if there how am I going to say this? He'll sometimes answer questions on the fly from the chronicle if it's kind of just like on the spot. And that was basically the situation that one of our reporters was in when he was able to get that quote from the mayor about how
the only legal opinion that mattered was the governor's. I know that quote in and of itself drove a lot of the news last week, But yeah, one of our reporters just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and they were doing a press conference ahead of FIFA. I know, we're gonna be hosting around seven World Cup games, but it was about human trafficking, and of course he got the opportunity to ask a couple of questions and we were able to get that.
But yeah, that's that's the situation. But yeah, no, it's definitely been hard covering the administration without having the administration be able to comment on things since August's real quick.
I mean it's a testament to Jabby's reporting her colleagues. A proud Houston Chronicle alum, but especially like the police coverage, this issue has been bubbling for months and months before it reached this point, and just slow trickle revelations of how HPD was cooperating, even as the Whitmyer insisted that the department.
Wasn't absolutely absolutely. So you mentioned the the sort of awkward political position that these mayors find that that's one word for it. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's it's not lost under me. I've always found it fascinating that these three cities, three of the four five biggest cities in the state, they all have like a little bit something in common, which is they all have former legislators
representing them. Uh. And also like kind of were lifted to power despite being Democrats by like, you know, at least with in addition to other support, the support from more people representing the political right, I know, like you talked about Whitmeyer. Eric Johnson has since become a Republican since being elect to mayor of Dallas, Kirk Watson and
Austin was a member of the Senate. He has i think taken great steps to not get into a big fight with the state government, which obviously has a lot of work to do, talk about just like this sort of like it's interesting to me how this has sort of played out where despite all of that, they're really kind of feeling the heat right now.
Yeah, And it's interesting because in Dallas, at least my read, you know, follow following the news, we don't report on this, you know, day and day out. The police department's been really vocal and like the Union two has kind of supported the measures in believing that it's legal. And in Austin, the mayor, in a low key way, disagreed with the governor. He was like, we believe this CISTE and compliance with Senate bill forr and federal law, and we think it's
just offering some clarity, what you know. According to some some legal experts, they agree the way they read these ordinances, they're kind of like very in the weeds about like what you can do and can do. And obviously the response in Houston, you know, another member of the Texas Senate, between John Whitmyer and Kirk Watson, had a very different response.
So I think it just speaks to how there is no no I guess playbook for this for Democrats and even also like obviously think Republicans are also struggling with this a bit, like how do you talk about immigration right now?
Yeah, I feel like these mayors, these city councils have to sort of make a decision about maybe they do think they're in the right here, but how much do they want to risk that right going to court? Obviously, you know it's a all Republican elected Supreme Court that might be inclined to see things more the Greg Abbott way than the city's way. It would be a very big risk financially to sort of say we're going to fight this, We're going to keep doing these policies that you've targeted.
Right, And I was trying to think of like comparable situations. I mean, you might know covering the city, but I mean maybe like Harvey funds, Like I don't know the last time, like cities were like we disagree here and we're gonna you know, entro ears long drawn out battle with the school.
I don't I don't have a good example of the year's long drawn out battle. I know, obviously, everything with the GLO and Harvey funding. I know that was obviously that is still ongoing basically. I mean, we're never going to hear the end of that one. But the most recent thing that I can think of was, I believe it was in October, but the state cracked down pretty
heavily on Houston after We've had this rainbow crosswalk. It was painted after there was a kid, a young man who died at the intersection there over by LTMPO and Montrose. But he they painted that crosswalk in honor of him. And it has been painted over and repainted like a whole bunch of different times, just due to road construction. You know, Houston Roads very awful. You got to refill everything.
But yeah, so they repainted it, and the governor took notice and and he put out this thing that said, if anyone has political ideologies on their street, we're going to take away tech stop funding. Right, So this is something that Houston has faced, like just in the recent past, you know what I mean. So, and that was something where Houston also didn't choose to fight back, and they also chose to just pave over that crosswalk, you know.
So to this day, there's no more rainbow in that intersection.
Yeah. Yeah, And then you look at Austin Watson, like I said, seems very interested in not getting into a big fight. It's a much smaller amount of money. But you look at his quote after this happened, you know, he says, talks about the great progress Austin has made in public safety in recent years. He says, there's great irony that the state would try to punish the city for providing services that keep Austinite safe by threatening grants
that keep Austin safe. I mean, you know, that seemed that read to me like a little bit of like the most subtle dig possible to say, Like, weren't you all talking about a few years ago, you know, defunding the police and how that was the worst possible thing that you could do in these cities.
No, And I think politically it kind of this this must be a win for Democrats in Austin that they're for once not the punching bag like that. Houston is kind of like, I know, Houston's also often a punching bag, But this could have gone a very different way, being that often is kind of like in the crosshairs of state leaders.
Often Abby, How is this playing out politically? On the ground in Houston, Like, what about the pressure from the other side is when.
My feeling that, you know, I think it's like a kind of hard to tell. But he recently said in an interview that, like his opinion is that this is all about politics, right, Like, and if you really sit back and look at it, I mean, I do think there's a merit to what he's saying. You have Abbott running a reelection campaign. You have it John Cornyan running a reelection campaign against Ken Paxton, and that race is
obviously like very close and everything. So I mean, you have all of these people on the Republican side basically diving in trying to like make a difference here and say like, oh this is wrong, this is right, you know. So I definitely think that plays into it. But I mean I think only time will tell, Like I mean, they're going to be voting on this tomorrow to see like how exactly this is going to go. I think one thing that is really important here is that the
administration is now looking at simply amending that proposal. So they're currently working on ironing out that language. We don't really know what that is going to say yet, but we're running right down to the wire here. So yeah, weol know a little bit more tomorrow, so it stays tuned.
It's a leven I see the Clucks eleven fifty am as we recorded this, and that language still has not circulated or been posted officially.
Is there a deadline that these cities need to figure this out by?
So Houston has until tomorrow to figure it out or they have to pay back that one hundred and fourteen million dollars.
Okay, okay, very good.
They originally had until Monday, but the Governor's office extended it to Wednesday.
Excellent. So, I uh, where does this go from here? Do you think all jundra? I mean we mentioned that Houston situation. I think Abbott kind of win after the other two cities a little bit later. Are they they have a little bit more time to figure it out. Are they signaling that they're going to do any changes here? Yeah?
I think it's interesting reading the tea lees from from the Attorney General and the governor because it seems like they're not letting up on immigration and they're running statewide campaigns and it's kind of become this radioactive issue. But I don't see them backing down now. I think I think either cities are going to reverse course or there
are going to be maybe like tinier battles. I don't know if it's gonna end up being like a massive battle, because I think I was a part of what's being lost in the conversations, Like the actions these cities have taken are kind of like lesser than what was happening, you know during Trump one, where where cities were doing much more drastic things in the name of like protecting
their undocumented residents. So I think that it's going to be a man of some cities reversing course and some maybe entering these tiny battles and trying to find a compromise, similar to like last year, there was this incident out of people remember kind of flew under the radar really early in the Trump administration, the Attorney General accuse Dallas of similarly violating this SPFORE and then put in a bunch of records requests as his office does, and started investigating.
And then there was kind of like a quiet resolution and then investigation went away. So I think it's gonna be a mix of those things.
It's it's been. It's an interesting political dynamic for Abbott too. I mean, I think he's given us no reason to believe that he doesn't, since he isn't sincerely angry and frustrated with these cities are doing it. There are a lot of people in his party, probably him included, that feel very strongly that these police departments should be cooperating
with ICE. But it has also, you know, been a very effective strategy for Republicans in recent years to blast Democrats for being soft domed immigration or you know, letting crime run rampant in the streets, or however they might want to frame it. But it's interesting because you know, the political winds have felt like they've shifted a little bit, right.
Yeah, No, it's just this morning I was speaking with our immigration editor and it's like, how like, if you're a Republican R and I guess one of the big questions like, how do you talk about this because you kind of don't know where voters stand after you know, almost two years of the President's immigration cracked down, especially here in Texas where I think it's been hasn't had the fanfare of elsewhere in the country, but it's you know, we have the most attention centers, we have the most
like the second most agreements with ice and the state police is like helping on the side of the road. Like I think the state is cooperating so much that we still haven't seen the impact on the electorate.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, if you looked at the you know, election results in twenty twenty four or other times, right, you know, there seemed to be a message from voters that many of them, at least those in the middle and on the right, felt that Democrats were being way too soft on immigration. But if you look at the polls now, particularly among Hispanic voters in Texas and elsewhere, there seems to be a feeling that Trump is going
way too far. And how does that fit in? Of course, Greg Abbott is up for reelection this year against a candidate who, you know, I have to be imagined, is pretty unhappy about you know, who has represented Austin in the legislature and is unhappy about the way this is going down totally.
I mean safe to say Democrats are feeling hopeful, whether they're looking at you know, primary turnout or the special election st nine up in Terren County when it comes to Hispanic voters and some of that pulling about buyer's remorse.
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, Well, we are right at the end of our time here for today, so that will do it. Pay attention to the Chronicle and the Texts Tribune for updates on where this story is heading, because by the time you're listening to this, it's possible we will have seen some changes there from from the mayor and that ordinance. But Abby, thank you, I know you're busy. Thank you for taking a little bit of time to walk us through this.
Yeah. Absolutely, thank you both for having me on. I appreciate it.
And thank you Alejandro, always a pleasure, all right, and a big thank you to Robin Chris, our producers as well. We will talk to y'all next week.