Austin Police Department to update policy on ICE cooperation

AUSTIN, Texas - The Austin Police Department will update their policy on how they cooperate with federal immigration agents.

This is because there are no clear rules in place for when they encounter someone with a non-criminal warrant. 

The backstory:

This comes after a case on Jan. 5, when officers responded to a disturbance call on Blue Stem Trail. The woman who called had an administrative warrant issued by ICE. APD notified ICE because of that administrative warrant. ICE took custody of the woman and her five-year-old child. 

This brought a lot of concerns about APD's level of cooperation with ICE. 

"We should not be reaching out to immigration when we happen to encounter somebody with one of these administrative warrants," Council Member Chito Vela (District 4) said.

According to a memo from Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis, the current policy says officers have to comply with immigration detainer requests, but the policy doesn't address administrative warrants. 

An administrative warrant for civil violations of immigration law, not criminal charges.

A detainer means ICE asks a local agency to hold a person.

Last year, ICE started entering administrative warrants into criminal databases, which caused confusion.

A state law, SB 4 from 2017, means APD can't decline their cooperation with ICE. 

APD says they don't proactively do immigration enforcement, but state law requires them to assist when called upon. 

"We just have to be very judicious, very careful about when we do communicate with immigration, and that needs to be an exceptional circumstance where there's a real threat to public safety," Vela said.

APD is reviewing General Orders to provide clearer guidance on how to deal with administrative warrants.

"My understanding of the policy that we'll be adopting is that patrol officers are going to need to get a higher-level approval and clearance," Vela said. "We don't need our patrol officers just sitting around waiting for immigration authorities to show up, we need them out on the street responding to emergency calls."

Immigration attorney Thomas Esparza says local agencies need structure on how to interact with immigration authorities.

"Not only APD, but law enforcement agencies all around the United States are trying to clarify when they're supposed to help and when it's okay to just sit back and wait to see how things develop," he said.

He says many immigrants are afraid to call the police for help. 

"If I were them, I'd be totally afraid to call. Are they going to report? 'Are you going to help me because [someone's] been beating on me all this time? Or are you going to take me in, you know, because I'm undocumented, as is the perpetrator of this crime?' That is just so unfair," he said.

Dig deeper:

There has been an ICE presence in other Central Texas cities.

In Kyle, ICE asked the police department for ambulance assistance. 

In Buda, the city asked ICE not to park their vehicles at City Hall. 

In both cases, the cities said they were not involved in the immigration operations.