Status as of November 9, 2026. Houston has changed when its police contact ICE, Austin is preparing a policy revision, and San Antonio lawmakers have proposed one. New York is enforcing a separate state restriction on local immigration detention contracts. These are different measures, not a nationwide ban on cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
A political change in Texas has quickly become a dispute over who does the work of immigration enforcement. Within days of the November 3 elections, Houston Mayor John Whitmire ordered a narrower police policy for contacting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Austin began preparing its own changes, while members of the San Antonio City Council requested a vote on a similar approach. At the same time, New York state officials reminded county sheriffs that agreements to house people solely for federal civil immigration violations must end by November 25.
Reports about a wave of cities refusing ICE cooperation capture a genuine shift, but flatten important distinctions. Houston has issued an effective executive order. Austin has announced preparations for a future change. San Antonio has a proposal rather than an enacted ordinance. New York's statewide law addresses detention contracts, not every interaction between local police and federal agents. The differences determine what has actually changed on the ground.
Houston makes the first immediate change
On November 6, Whitmire signed Executive Order 1-74, effective that day. It directs the Houston Police Department to revise its instructions on contacting ICE when officers encounter a person with an administrative immigration warrant. The city's new rule focuses on whether the person is already being taken to jail for another reason.
Police Chief J. Noe Diaz explained that officers issuing a citation after a routine traffic stop will no longer contact ICE merely because a database check reveals an administrative immigration warrant. Under the new approach, ICE contact is tied to an arrest for a jailable offense and the relevant warrant hit. The policy does not abolish arrests for crimes, prohibit federal officers from conducting their own operations or eliminate every form of local-federal cooperation.
Whitmire said the change was intended to reduce fear in the community. He also explicitly linked his decision to the election. Reuters reported that the mayor consulted incoming state leaders after Democrats won Texas statewide offices, including the governorship. Houston's announcement therefore marked both an operational police change and a political reversal.
The reversal is particularly striking because the city had faced pressure in the opposite direction earlier this year. According to The Texas Tribune, outgoing Governor Greg Abbott threatened to withhold roughly $110 million in public safety funding over restrictions on cooperation. Houston subsequently revised its policy and instructed officers to notify ICE about administrative warrant hits. The November order retreats from that approach.
Why an administrative ICE warrant matters
At the center of the dispute is the difference between an administrative immigration warrant and a criminal warrant issued by a judge. Administrative warrants are issued within the federal immigration system. They can reflect civil immigration enforcement, including a removal order, rather than a new criminal charge. A hit in the National Crime Information Center database does not, by itself, mean a local officer has discovered a new criminal offense.
That distinction has become decisive during ordinary encounters such as traffic stops. Under Houston's earlier instructions, a civil immigration warrant could trigger a call to ICE even when the underlying local matter would otherwise end with a citation. Under the new directive, a person not being taken to jail is no longer referred to ICE solely on that basis. The order changes local police procedure; it does not cancel the underlying federal immigration warrant.
The issue has a longer history in Houston. The Texas Tribune reported that Houston police contacted ICE at least 107 times during the first eight months of 2025, compared with nine times during all of 2024, according to reporting by the Houston Chronicle. The dispute also extended to a case in which a woman reporting domestic violence was found to have an immigration warrant. Those examples fueled debate over whether routine police contact with residents was becoming an entry point into federal deportation enforcement.
Austin prepares a change for January
In Austin, Mayor Kirk Watson announced on November 6 that he had asked Police Chief Lisa Davis to prepare revised general orders on ICE cooperation. The timing is different from Houston's. According to KUT, Austin's NPR station, Watson wants the revised rules ready when Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa takes office in January.
That means Austin's announcement is a commitment to develop policy, not evidence that officers are already operating under a newly adopted blanket prohibition. The mayor framed the review as an effort to align police instructions with the city's priorities and the changed state political environment. The eventual wording and implementation date remain separate questions from the November announcement.
San Antonio considers a city ordinance
San Antonio's initiative is still at an earlier stage. Council members Teri Castillo, Jalen McKee-Rodriguez and Ric Galvan signed a November 6 memorandum requesting a special meeting no later than November 17. KSAT reported that the proposal would generally restrict police contact with ICE to cases in which a person is already going to jail on other charges or warrants and also has an ICE administrative warrant hit.
The proposed text also states that suspected immigration violations alone would not justify extending detention or holding someone in custody. These provisions describe what the sponsors want the city to adopt. As of November 9, the proposal had not become an enacted citywide policy. San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones has separately called for examination of ways to reduce cooperation, according to the Texas Tribune.
New York's approach concerns jail contracts
New York's development is often grouped with the Texas announcements, although its legal mechanism is different. On November 6, Attorney General Letitia James and Governor Kathy Hochul announced guidance to county executives and sheriffs about the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act, enacted in May.
The law requires local governments to terminate arrangements under which local facilities house people solely for federal civil immigration violations by November 25. The attorney general's letter says agreements covering both civil immigration detention and federal criminal detention must end the prohibited civil-detention portion. It expressly preserves compliance with judicial warrants and court orders, and it does not bar detention-space arrangements for people facing pending federal criminal charges.
In other words, New York is restricting one institutional channel through which federal immigration detention uses local jail capacity. It is not announcing that every sheriff or police officer must cease all contact with ICE. The November 25 date is an implementation deadline for a law already enacted, not the date on which a new executive order was signed.
Why Texas state law remains a constraint
Texas has long restricted local governments' ability to limit immigration-enforcement cooperation. Senate Bill 4, enacted in 2017, established state-level requirements and penalties affecting so-called sanctuary policies. The conflict over Houston's earlier ordinance and Abbott's threat to withdraw funding illustrate why municipal leaders have treated state law as a practical constraint, not merely a political argument.
Houston's latest order attempts to draw a line between civil immigration status and arrests for offenses that would independently result in jail. Whether that interpretation will face a new legal challenge is not established by the November 6 announcement. The change in statewide elected leadership helps explain the timing, but an election result does not itself repeal an existing statute.
The federal government also retains its own immigration enforcement powers. City decisions about routine notifications, custody transfers or detention contracts affect access to local resources and information. They do not terminate ICE investigations, federal warrants, immigration court proceedings or the legal authority to carry out removals under federal law.
Is Dallas part of the same wave?
Dallas appeared in earlier disputes with Abbott over city cooperation with ICE, and was among the cities named in state funding threats reported by KSAT. That history does not establish that Dallas has adopted a new restriction this November. The verified developments in this report are Houston's signed order, Austin's announced policy review, San Antonio's pending proposal and New York's existing statewide detention-contract deadline. Treating all four, or Dallas, as municipalities that have already stopped cooperating with ICE would overstate the record.
What the wave actually shows
The emerging pattern is not a single national sanctuary policy. It is a collection of local and state decisions targeting specific points where local institutions assist federal civil immigration enforcement. In Houston, the point is police notification during encounters that do not result in jail. In Austin, officials are preparing to revisit similar instructions. In San Antonio, lawmakers are seeking a formal vote. In New York, the issue is the use of county detention facilities.
The developments also show how rapidly local enforcement policy can respond to elections, even while federal immigration law remains unchanged. For now, the clearest measurable change is Houston's November 6 order. The other initiatives have different timelines, legal forms and unresolved implementation steps. Calling them a collective refusal to cooperate with ICE obscures precisely what each government has, and has not, done.