HOUSTON – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against the City of Houston over its recently passed ordinance that limits when the Houston Police Department can call U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Paxton called the ordinance a violation of Texas Senate Bill 4, a bill which was signed into law during the 2017 Legislative Session.
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Under Senate Bill 4, local entities cannot adopt, enforce, or endorse a policy that prohibits or materially limits the enforcement of federal immigration laws.
The lawsuit is filed against the City of Houston, Mayor John Whitmire, Houston city councilmembers and others.
“The Texas Legislature passed strong legislation that specifically stops the type of lawless ordinance that Houston adopted. Houston has no authority to ignore the Constitution and the laws duly enacted by the Legislature. I’m calling on Houston to immediately repeal this ordinance,” Paxton said.
The lawsuit is the latest move over the city’s ordinance.
On Monday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott sent a letter to Houston Mayor John Whitmire, which states the city’s ordinance violates an April 15, 2025 certification between the City of Houston and the Public Safety Office of the Governor (PSO), which states the city would “participate fully… in all aspects of the programs and procedures utilized by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security,” including notifying DHS of requested information regarding undocumented immigrants in HPD custody and detaining such individuals in accordance with DHS requests.
The state called the ordinance a breach of that certification and warned it “imperils all grant agreements between the City and PSO for Fiscal Year 2026.
Mayor Whitmire released a statement on Monday, calling the situation a crisis and said the city risked losing more than $100 million in public safety grants over the dispute.
The governor’s deadline for a response on the issue was April 20, and a special City Council meeting to address the issue was scheduled for Friday, however, Whitmire said the meeting was moved from Friday to Wednesday after the state moved the deadline to Wednesday.