In the state of Kansas, Democrat Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed House Bill 2372 — requiring county sheriffs to honor ICE detainers for illegal immigrant criminals housed in their jails — before the legislature took matters into its own hands.
In red-state Texas, the City of Houston has reversed a policy in which the Houston Police Department would contact ICE at a traffic stop, within a 30-minute window, if a suspect has an immigration warrant.
The new anti-ICE policy, which critics call a de facto sanctuary policy, was approved 12-5 by the Houston City Council on April 8.
Elected officials in Houston and Harris County have been public and proud about refusing to cooperate with ICE.
Back in Kansas, the Republican-led legislature voted to override Kelly’s veto of House Bill 2372 with a 85-38 vote in the House. The vote in the Senate was 31-9.
Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, told AFN the legislators in Kansas are demonstrating they understand the importance of local and federal law enforcement working together.
“If ICE is moving to remove somebody from the country, they are the federal law enforcement department that is charged with that task," he said "It's not the place of state and local governments to block it."
For Kelly, a bill that cracks down on criminals somehow punishes the children of illegal aliens, whom she refers to as Kansans.
"This bill targets Kansans who were brought to the United States as children," she told reporters. "To punish these kids for decisions their parents made years ago is not only cruel, but also not in the best interest of the state.”
Kelly's veto was a “purely ideological” decision by a radical Democrat," Mehlman said.
“It had nothing to do with public safety, or the best interest of the country, or the people in those communities,” he insisted.
A concern for “public safety” is a common talking point for Democrats, including Houston Mayor John Whitmire. In an X post supporting the ordinance, the Mayor said the City Council is “staying focused on public safety, not politics.”
Mayor Whitmire’s comment about public safety is quite controversial, however, since illegal aliens took the lives of two Houston-area children in 2024.
Jocelyn Nungaray, 12, was sexually assaulted and strangled to death by two Venezuelan nationals. Her body was found in North Houston, where the illegal aliens had dumped it in a creek (pictured at right).
Ivory Smith, 7, was killed in a car accident involving an intoxicated illegal immigrant who is also from Venezuela.
The illegal alien who took Smith’s life, Joel Gonzalez Chacin, was released from the Harris County jail for a domestic violence charge even though ICE had a detainer to pick him up. He struck and killed Smith’s vehicle 2 ½ months later on I-90 in Harris County.
The new Houston policy is also a direct violation of a Texas law, passed in 2019, that requires local law enforcement to cooperate with federal law enforcement, namely to honor detainer requests.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has threatened to terminate public safety grants for Houston, totaling more than $110, if the ordinance is not repealed.
Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, has also filed suit to fight the new ordinance.
