HOUSTON – Houston Mayor John Whitmire sat down with 2 Investigates first on Wednesday morning to discuss reports that left Houstonians questioning whether the Houston Police Department played a role in referring thousands of individuals to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for arrests.
“For 25, the entire year, Houston had contact with 74 individuals that by following the law were referred to ICE,” said Whitmire.
The numbers are dramatically different from a recent national and local newspaper report according to Whitmire. The initial reporting pointed to data that the City of Houston was on the hook for 5,200 ICE arrests. Since then, those newspapers had to walk back their reporting and issue a correction as the arrests consisted of a much larger area of Southeast Texas and not Houston proper.
“5,200 is 54 counties, part of Louisiana,” said Whitmire.
During the interview Whitmire emphasized that there had not been an ICE surge in Houston because “we have been very responsible” making clear exactly HPD’s stance when dealing with individuals, “We don’t ask people when we have contact with them, their immigration status,” said Whitmire.
However, if there is a criminal component, or say a traffic stop where ID must be documented and an warrant pops for an individual, Whitmire says HPD has an obligation by federal law to contact the jurisdiction that issued the warrant. This means potentially contacting a jurisdiction in another city, county, state or even ICE.
“If someone has a warrant and I don’t care where it’s from, in this instance we are talking about ICE, by law we have to contact them,” said Whitmire.
Whitmire says that in the 74 cases HPD had in 2025 involving ICE, there was a warrant issued for the individual who made contact with HPD. The mayor also added that HPD has not coordinated or taken part in any deportation with ICE.