Texas Dems Take Advantage Of Blue Wave To Draw Up Sanctuary City Plans

Days after Democrats swept Texas in the midterm elections, several cities across the Lone Star State are already rushing to enact sanctuary policies to prevent local authorities from working with federal immigration agents.

In April, outgoing Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott threatened to withhold millions of dollars in public safety grants to cities refusing to work with ICE. Now, with Democrat Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa’s leadership on the horizon, several cities are moving to end ICE cooperation.

Three days after Election Day, Houston Democrat Mayor John Whitmire signed an order limiting local police officers’ ability to contact ICE, allowing illegal immigrants considered to be non-violent offenders to walk free.

“This is the right thing to do at the right time,” Whitmire said during a press conference on Friday.

“No one has to worry about them doing a warrant, search, which includes ICE, unless they’re being charged with a new jailable offense, including dangerous crimes, violent offenders. It will improve our public safety, it will reduce the fear and anxiety of students, our workers, and I will take the responsibility of making this change even with the current administration still in office for two months,” he said.

Three Houston City Council members have also moved to codify the policy to make it more difficult to undo in the future.

Whitmire said he hopes his order will serve as a “model for Texas cities” and it already appears to be doing so.

In San Antonio, a group of city council members is pushing to prohibit local police officers from calling ICE when they encounter illegal immigrants with deportation orders.

Under the proposal, local police can only contact ICE if an illegal immigrant “is already going to jail on new charges or other warrants and has a positive National Crime Information Center hit for an ICE administrative warrant,” according to the San Antonio Express-News.

A similar effort is underway in Austin, where the city’s mayor, Kirk Watson, has indicated his intention to amend the city’s policy on working with ICE.

“I believe strongly that Austinites deserve to be safe and to feel safe,” Watson recently said. “That can only happen if people feel safe calling for help and getting needed support from law enforcement and first responders.”

Watson said he has already asked the Austin Police Department to ready a new policy for when Hinojosa assumes the governorship in January, according to Houston Public Media.

Watson said he asked Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis to craft a new policy to be ready for when Governor-elect Hinojosa, an Austin Democrat, takes over in January.

Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a statement shared with The Daily Wire that ICE has nabbed “murderers, rapists, and arsonists” across Austin. DHS provided a list of some of the illegal immigrants detained by federal immigration agents.

Among those arrested in Austin were Honduran national Juan Fernando Lara Saavedra, a previously deported convicted murderer, Venezuelan national Daniel Alejandro Vera Belandia, a convicted rapist with a deportation order, and five-time deportee Santiago Lopez Diaz, an illegal alien from Honduras who was convicted of aggravated battery on a pregnant woman.

Mullin vowed to remain undeterred by sanctuary policies being proposed across Texas.

“No matter how much sanctuary politicians try to obstruct us, the patriots of ICE will keep doing their jobs by arresting and deporting criminal illegal aliens,” Mullin said.

“Sanctuary politicians are failing their constituents by limiting cooperation with ICE,” he said. “When state, local, and federal partners work together to remove illegal aliens like these, everyone is better off.”

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