It stopped me in my tracks Friday when I heard Houston’s mayor announce that he is fundamentally changing our police department’s partnership with ICE. I literally pulled over to the side of the road and wept.
Mayor Whitmire, a Democrat, had concealed the Houston Police collaboration with ICE after Trump accelerated aggressive and often violent enforcement here.
He had been walking the finest of lines. On the one hand, his constituents vociferously opposed ICE tactics. There were countless marches through downtown and nightly protests at prison-like detention centers. On the other hand, our governor was threatening to withhold state funding and our attorney general was threatening lawsuits if Houston didn’t comply with Trump’s new policies.
Now that Governor Abbott and Attorney General Paxton are on their way out, the mayor is doing the right thing. As MLK used to say, “the time is always right to do what’s right.” I applaud the mayor’s move. I am relieved and thankful that even though the ICE nightmare isn’t ending, our city and our mayor are standing up for what is right.
That’s a photo of Emmanuel above, center, holding a FIEL flag. You may remember that the autistic teen was picked up by Houston police in October of last year and then handed over to ICE who held him for 48 days without access to his family. He underwent an appendectomy while in custody.
While Houston hasn’t been militarized like Los Angeles or Chicago, more immigrants are deported from Houston than from any other U.S. city (according to the advocacy group FIEL). Our community members have been living in constant fear of masked government agents who were literally snatching people off the streets. Some of the most violent episodes in ICE enforcement happened in our city (Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot and killed just blocks from the music studio our kids frequent).
Thank you, Mayor Whitmire, for taking a step to make our city whole again. It’s time for all of us to look to tomorrow and a brighter future for all of our community members. Thank you for ending this madness.
Image used with permission, courtesy FIEL.
