A fight decades in the making came to a head this week as Texas defeated Houston’s push to stop cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, sealing the Democrat-run city’s fate for the time being.
The administration of Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX), an incumbent seeking a fourth term in November, delivered a blow to Democrats in the nation’s fourth most populous city by holding back state funding after Houston attempted to step out of line with the state’s immigration approach. It’s the latest example of a fallout between a red state and a blue city over how to respond to ICE’s crackdown on illegal immigrants nationwide as President Donald Trump continues his mass deportation operation.
No other state has worked more closely with the Trump administration to arrest illegal immigrants than Texas, where more than 94,000 illegal immigrants were arrested by federal law enforcement since Trump returned to office last January through early March 2026.
Houston has a large illegal immigrant population, and ICE arrests in the city are high — one reason the state and federal government want to ensure its local police continue to work with them.
How the fight began
Houston, named the fifth-most-diverse city in America in 2025, has long been supportive of immigrants, regardless of their legal status.
The Houston Police Department’s policy has barred officers from arresting or detaining someone based on immigration status since 1990. In 2006, Houston employed a policy, known as a “sanctuary order,” that forbade law enforcement from asking about a person’s immigration status during an encounter.
Conservatives then launched a petition to trigger a citywide vote to recall the policy. Again in 2012, opponents of illegal immigration circulated a petition to force a vote on the issue.
During that period, many Democrat-controlled city councils and state legislatures passed legislation and policies to prevent local police from working with federal immigration authorities in any way.
In 2017, Abbott signed into law Senate Bill 4, a monumental state law that prevented all towns and cities from complying with ICE’s requests that illegal immigrants in local jails to be turned over to federal police upon release.
“It’s inexcusable to release individuals from jail that have been charged with heinous crimes like sexual assault against minors, domestic violence and robbery,” Abbott said in a statement at the time. “There are deadly consequences to not enforcing the law, and Texas has now become a state where those practices are not tolerated.”
Texas cities have been beholden to the state, complicating efforts to go as far as blue cities in blue states have been able to go. Houston was among a group of Texas cities that pushed back and sued. However, most of SB 4 was upheld by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Fast forward to 2026
Earlier this month, the Houston City Council passed a new ordinance, known as Proposition A. It stated that ICE’s administrative warrants carried little weight because they are civil warrants that have not been issued by a judge, and it got rid of an existing policy that required local police to detain an illegal immigrant for 30 minutes until ICE could show up.
For years, traffic stops by police that resulted in an officer finding someone he or she suspected was an illegal immigrant would trigger a call to ICE. Although police in cities such as Chicago or New York City would not hold that person for ICE, Texas required the city of Houston to do so for a short period.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire, a Democrat, took to X and shared his remarks from a recent city council meeting.
“I’ve always been clear: Houston follows local and state law,” Whitmire said. “We are not ICE, and we do not enforce federal immigration law. Today, I joined a majority of City Council to pass a sensitive ordinance on immigration procedures. Staying focused on public safety not politics.”
Abbott acknowledged the change and threatened the city.
“Houston received more than $100 million from the state based on a written agreement that they will comply with immigration enforcement,” Abbott wrote in a post to X on April 14. “If they refuse to comply, they better get out their check book. It will be costly if they refuse to keep their streets safe.”
On April 16, GOP state Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Houston officials for approving sanctuary policies that violated SB 4.
“Houston has no authority to ignore the Constitution and the laws duly enacted by the Legislature,” Paxton said in a statement. “I’m calling on Houston to immediately repeal this ordinance.”
The showdown
Abbott gave Houston until this past Wednesday to repeal its new policy or refund the state $110 million for public safety.
In the lead-up to the city vote on Wednesday, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations office in Houston issued a statement doubling down on the kind of work its officers do in the region. The office said it arrested 277 criminal illegal immigrants who had a combined 751 criminal offenses and had illegally entered the United States 654 times.
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Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who is in a contentious primary race against Paxton, praised Abbott for “holding their feet to the fire.”
On Wednesday, the Houston City Council debated for several hours on how to proceed and ultimately voted 13-4 to walk back much of the policy, allowing local police to detain suspected illegal immigrants for ICE. The vote means that Houston police may detain a person who is not the recipient of a judicial warrant until ICE can respond and take custody.