Houston Police Working With ICE
They say their stance hasn’t changed, but officers in the fourth largest U.S. city have been arresting migrants on administrative warrants
In Houston, Texas, several cases of Houston Police Officers (HPD) detaining migrants after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) added more than 700,000 administrative warrants to the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) have been reported. Most of these are not criminal but civil warrants not signed by a judge. ICE is also seeking City of Houston data on every motorist cited for not having a driver’s license since 2023.
The NCIC database is how police identify people with warrants for their arrest. Now, local cops across the country can see if an administrative warrant for deportation has been issued against someone – a data point not previously available to local and state police due to immigration falling under the sole responsibility of the federal government. However, after the passage of the Patriot Act, the line that separates federal and state power has been blurred.
The limits of federal and state law enforcement powers are described in the Tenth Amendment, which says, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” According to Cornell Law School, “...the federal government does not hold a general police power but may only act where the Constitution enumerates a power.”
The debate over whether local police have the authority to enforce federal law has a long history. Today, most will argue that local and state law enforcement can only enforce federal law if they are acting as a federal agent with a defined role in a federal agency. Otherwise, local and state cops can only assist federal law enforcement, not act as federal agents.
But these aren’t normal times. We are currently under the unilateral control of a presidential administration with no regard for the law or the courts. The Department of Homeland Security is currently operating sloppily, sending demands for citizens to self deport, the detention of countless Latinos for “looking like” a so-called “illegal alien,” and disappearing noncriminal migrants to foreign slave labor prisons that are inhumane and illegal in El Salvador.
It should be noted that Human Rights Watch issued a report in 2020 about El Salvadoran migrants deported from the U.S. to El Salvador’s prisons, highlighting the horrifying conditions we discuss today. The report also shows that at least 138 at-risk El Salvadoran migrants who left due to threats to their lives and were deported back to El Salvador had been killed.
The inhumanity of our immigration system isn’t new. How Trump is exploiting it is.
The administration doesn't care that it is subverting people’s constitutional rights and unlawfully subjecting them to a prison system outside the country without so much as due process. That same logic is applied across the spectrum, including at the local and state levels. In Texas, where political leaders believe they have the authority to enforce federal immigration laws and pass state-level immigration legislation, it’s even more tedious for local police.
In Houston, a woman called for help after her car burst into flames. Responding HPD officers immediately advised her that she would be arrested and was facing deportation according to a warrant entered into the NCIC database. She was handcuffed and held in a police car for more than an hour and was eventually released after ICE confirmed the warrant was invalid.
In early March, Jose Armando Argueta was detained during a traffic stop in northeast Houston. An HPD spokesperson said the officer conducting the traffic stop checked Argueta’s criminal history for any outstanding criminal warrants, resulting in an administrative ICE warrant popping up. Argueta was taken into custody and taken to the Montgomery County Processing Center, about 40 miles North of Houston.
Cases like these are unfolding all over the country. From permanent residents like Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, and most recently, Mohsen Mahdawi to U.S. citizens getting caught up because of dubious new rules put in place by the Trump administration, this is a level of fascism not seen in the U.S in decades. Something as simple as speaking Spanish could lead to being detained by cops who don’t know anything about immigration law.
The detention of Kilmar Abrego Garcia – among hundreds of others – in El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison and El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s refusal to release him despite a court order to return him to the U.S. also reeks of Nazi-level fascism. While Bukele says he lacks the authority to release Abrego Garcia, he’s lying. Bukele is the president of a country in its third year of martial law. Of course, he can release him.
As Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council, Aaron Rechilin-Melnick said on X, its isn’t that complicated. “1. Bukele releases him from CECOT,” said Reichlin-Melnick. “2. The US gives him humanitarian parole as part of the court order requiring them to facilitate his return; 3. His family buys him a plane ticket; 4. He flies home.” However, it seems Trump administration goons gave Bukele talking points before their White House presser.
The Trump administration’s actions, while simultaneously blurring the line between separation of powers, will only accelerate the process of leading us to a full-blown authoritarian state. The targeting of speech and its weaponization to justify circumventing people’s rights are among the most alarming aspects that will lead to much suffering.
Many have declared that it’s only a matter of time before the Trump administration or any other succeeding administration – should there be one – weaponizes this gross overreach against citizens, and it’s hard to disagree. The way they are operating, the next logical step for them is to have government officials start declaring any one of us terrorists unworthy of citizenship for something we said. Suddenly, we could be on a plane flight to CECOT or Guantanamo.
It’s worth noting that while some police chiefs, mayors, and state leaders willingly give up their sovereign authority to the federal government, luckily, many will not. The level of support those who are appeasing the Trump administration’s fascism have among Trump voters may be higher now. But as soon as those supporters realize that those same people are handing power over to a federal government universally hated by conservatives, it may just blow up in their faces. If it doesn’t, it’ll be too late when those voters finally realize it.
For Houston’s Mayor and its current police chief, it may lead to their ouster. Despite both saying that HPD’s policy on working with ICE hasn’t changed, the actions of more and more officers say otherwise. As any Houstonian knows, this is a grossly unpopular move that most Texans don’t abide. The last thing people who freaked out about Jade Helm (and thought Obama was going to invade Texas) want is the federal government having any part of local law enforcement.
Additional Reading
Read my previous coverage about Our Eroding Civil Rights.
Read my reporting about CBP’s growing reach over U.S. citizens.
Read my reporting about ICE training civilians to conduct immigration raids.
Arturo is an independent journalist whose work can be found at Unicorn Riot, The Antagonist Magazine, Latino Rebels, and more. Arturo is also on TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, and Threads. To support his work, become a paid subscriber or donate via Venmo, PayPal, or Cash App.
This is a very specific detailed description of what you are finding. I am so concerned on so many levels. I will continue to read and listen to your words. Somehow, this has to be stopped.