The office of Gov. Greg Abbott said on Monday that Texas would pull $110 million in public safety spending for Houston — including for the Police Department — unless Mayor John Whitmire vowed to stop enforcing a new city ordinance outlining how its police officers engage with ICE.
The warning came less than a week after the City Council passed the new ordinance, which clarified when city officers can hold people so immigration agents can arrest them. It followed a letter sent on Friday to Mr. Whitmire by the office of the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, initiating an investigation into the new ordinance.
Mr. Whitmire said in a statement that the threat from the governor’s public safety office to claw back public safety grants could pose significant problems for Houston, which relies on state and federal money to pay its Police and Fire Departments. The mayor said that reduced funding could affect safety across the city, as well as preparations for the World Cup matches this summer.
“This is a crisis situation,” he said in a statement.
Abbie Kamin, a Democrat who was one of the sponsors of the ordinance, accused Mr. Abbott, a Republican, of “attempting to defund the police.”
“Houston has a responsibility to defend itself from state overreach,” she said in an interview.
The clash over immigration enforcement represents a critical test for Mr. Whitmire, a veteran Texas Democrat and former longtime state senator who has promoted his ability to work with Republican state leaders in Austin.
Mr. Whitmire, in interviews, has faulted the Democratic leaders of other cities for what he has called “counterproductive” fights with conservatives, particularly those who have challenged the Trump administration over immigration. He has taken pride in what he has said is a lack of turmoil in his city over the matter.
The ordinance at issue in Houston was not Mr. Whitmire’s idea. It was brought before the Council by three of its members without his support, though Mr. Whitmire eventually voted for the measure.
On Monday, the mayor appeared to blame those council members for creating the crisis.
“I repeatedly warned the ordinance sponsors” about the “legal and financial risks associated with this approach,” he said.
Ms. Kamin did not respond directly to Mr. Whitmire’s statement, saying instead that the ordinance was “in line with what other cities in Texas have passed.”
In a letter to Mr. Whitmire on Monday, the executive director of Texas’s public safety office, Andrew Friedrichs, gave Mr. Whitmire a week to ensure that his administration was not enforcing the ordinance and that it would act to repeal it. If the office decided to terminate its 2026 grants to Houston, which total around $110 million, “the city would be required to repay” the entire amount, Mr. Friedrichs wrote.
As of Monday evening, the funding had already been frozen and the city could not use it, according to Mary Benton, a spokeswoman for Mr. Whitmire.
The ordinance, approved by a 12-to-5 vote on Wednesday, concerns guidance given to police officers for handling people during brief encounters, such as traffic stops, when they discover an administrative warrant from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Houston officers would still alert immigration agents that they had stopped the person, but under the ordinance they would not hold them longer than necessary so that agents could pick them up.
“When a lawful traffic stop ends, that individual is free to go — the Fourth Amendment says so,” Ms. Kamin said, referring to the amendment of the U.S. Constitution regarding searches and seizures.
The mayor said in his statement that he voted in favor of the ordinance because he believed it “affirmed our original policy: Houston enforces state and local law — not federal law, and we are not ICE.”
“However, Governor Abbott disagrees,” Mr. Whitmire said. “I’m considering all options.”
J. David Goodman is the Texas bureau chief for The Times, based in Houston.
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