Houston Police Department officials pledged to “push for efficiency and effectiveness” in 2025 and further clarified their stance on immigration enforcement as part of a Tuesday presentation to the city’s Public Safety Committee.
At the Tuesday morning meeting in council chambers, Assistant Chief Megan Howard of HPD promised the opening of a new central station by the end of the year, the implementation of a new records management system by early April, and transferring property room operations to the Houston Forensic Science Center, among other measures as part of her presentation on HPD’s goals for 2025.
Meanwhile, Howard also assured HPD would take a backseat on immigration enforcement.
“We are a local law enforcement agency, and our focus is on state law, local ordinance, and our local criminal enforcement duties,” she told the committee. “Our policy is that we do not step into operations that are focused on immigration enforcement.”
The statement followed questions from Council Member Abbie Kamin, who said constituents had been reaching out to her with questions about immigration enforcement. In response, Howard said their focus would stay on violent crime, and insisted that HPD wants Houstonians to feel safe approaching police.
“We have to work cooperatively with our entire community,” said Howard. “It’s important that anyone who needs help is comfortable and willing to come to us and ask for help, and we will take their reports, and we will make sure that we do our best to get justice for victims of crime. “
This is consistent with prior statements from Mayor Whitmire, who said that HPD had not assisted any federal immigration enforcement efforts a couple of weeks ago. I believe them, I believe that HPD and the Mayor don’t consider that to be a part of HPD’s mission, and I also believe that they’re going to come under a lot of pressure to change that stance. Especially now that federal immigration enforcement resources are at full capacity and are going to need the help, if indeed they try to do more. All that said, given the Colony Ridge experience, the feds and DPS may just cut HPD and the Sheriff out of anything they plan to do. We just don’t really know right now what to expect.