Houston Police Chief Noe Diaz speaks to the media about the city’s immigration policies, after reports that at least two officers violated policies by transporting people to ICE, during a news conference at HPD headquarters in Houston, Wednesday, March 11, 2026.Brett Coomer/Houston ChronicleHouston Police Chief Noe Diaz announced Wednesday that federal immigration officers will be given a 30-minute window to respond to calls from city police officers about people they encounter who have administrative immigration warrants.The new policy represents a major change in the way the police department handles its interaction with federal immigration authorities. Diaz announced the policy during a news conference alongside Mayor John Whitmire.Diaz also announced that patrol officers will be required to call a sergeant to the scene when they encounter people with administrative warrants, and will be prohibited in transporting people if only their immigration status is at issue.Article continues below this ad"Officers will not transport anyone solely for the purpose of an administrative warrant," Diaz said.If ICE agents don't show up within the time window, officers will be instructed to take the detained person's information and release them.Houston Chronicle LogoMake us a Preferred Source on Google to see more of us when you search.Add Preferred SourceIn announcing the policy change, Diaz cited numbers meant to show that officers' encounters with people who had administrative warrants represented a tiny percentage of the overall number of calls they received in 2025.But in addition to those numbers, he said 17 people were "transported to meet ICE" in 2025. It was not immediately clear if those 17 instances were similar to the two where officers drove people to ICE custody, or something else.Article continues below this adIn some cases, officers moved locations for safety reasons, so they could be in better-lit areas or away from busy roadways, Diaz said. The Chronicle has requested further information on the 17 reports. Wednesday's news conference comes after several council members called for changes and accountability from the department following the Chronicle's exclusive report that officers in at least two cases had arrested and personally transported drivers to immigration agents.Some legal experts have said the two officers' actions could amount to a constitutional violation, because the Fourth Amendment places sole authority for enforcing immigration laws on federal agents.Mayor John Whitmire speaks to the media about the city’s immigration policies, after reports that at least two officers violated policies by transporting people to ICE, during a news conference at HPD headquarters in Houston, Wednesday, March 11, 2026.Brett Coomer/Houston ChronicleWhitmire told several television stations last week that he was disappointed and that the two officers who arrested drivers and drove them to ICE agents violated agency policies in doing so. “It will be corrected," he said.Article continues below this adWhitmire reiterated Wednesday that the two arrests were a mistake and described the officers who transported the two drivers to ICE as "young." The officers weren't disciplined, but "consulted with," Diaz said.Before President Donald Trump began his second term as president in January 2025, Whitmire told news outlets that officers wouldn’t enforce immigration laws. But in the months since then, officials in Trump’s administration added 700,000 noncriminal administrative warrants to a database available to agencies nationwide.Houston's previous guidelines on the administrative warrants, which have come under criticism from immigration advocates, advise officers to call ICE and wait “a reasonable amount of time” for an agent to come to the scene. But both national police associations and Houston leaders have told officers not to make arrests on immigration violations alone.At the start of the news conference, Whitmire praised the work of the police department under Diaz and called Houston a "model of success" in public safety. He said Houston had managed to avoid immigration crackdowns that had been ordered in other cities led by Democratic mayors, name-checking Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, Memphis and Minneapolis."We haven't had an ICE surge because I disagree with people being disagreeable," Whitmire said. "We follow the law."Article continues below this adHe accused mayors in other cities of planting "seeds of disruption," and accused some immigration lawyers of "taking money from immigrants when they know they can't help them."Whitmire also said the city relies on state and federal funding that could be at risk if not for his administration's approach to immigration enforcement.Responses to Whitmire and DiazTravis Fife, an attorney for the Texas Civil Rights Project, said the mayor seemed to acknowledge that Wednesday’s changes were in reality doubling down on enforcement practices that have left some Houstonians terrified.Article continues below this adThe policy changes will also allow HPD officers to prolong detentions and traffic stops on the basis of administrative warrants, Fife said.“The mayor’s office has been a complete moving target on this issue from the start of the Trump administration,” Fife said. “First, we said we’re not cooperating. Then he came back and acknowledged some cooperation. Now, in this latest press conference, he’s slamming his fist down and celebrating enforcement practices that are separating families, violating the constitutional rights of Houstonians and wasting already-strained HPD resources.”Cesar Espinosa, the executive director of the immigration advocacy group FIEL Houston, also blasted Whitmire's and Diaz's Wednesday comments."Mayor Whitmire is not doing anything special," he said. "He is just safeguarding the city from violations to our constitution. This policy is something that should have been in place from day one."A Chronicle investigation found agencies across Texas have taken different approaches to how they handle ICE administrative warrants, with some officers seeking guidance about the legalities of detaining immigrants and contacting ICE. Houston city leaders have largely been silent on the issue before this month.Austin elected leaders recently made changes to its policies in the face of growing criticism for the police department's handling of administrative warrants. Before, Austin's policies largely echoed Houston's. Now, officers must get permission from senior leaders before detaining someone on an ICE administrative warrant, according to a statement from a statement from Mayor Pro Tem José "Chito" Vela and Council Member José Velásquez. Several members of Houston's city council called on the chief to appear at an upcoming meeting to answer questions about the department's policies, and some called for the dissolved community affairs division to be reinstated after learning of the two ICE arrests. “I commend the Mayor and the Houston Police Department for taking the first step toward additional oversight and addressing some long-standing community concerns," Council Member Alejandra Salinas said after Wednesday's news conference. "But we cannot stop here. Houston is still requiring police to cooperate with ICE beyond what state law mandates and beyond what other major Texas cities — from Bexar County to the Cities of Austin and Dallas — are doing."Salinas said she would continue working with colleagues and community partners on stronger policies and transparency measures with the goal of helping all Houstonians feel safer.March 11, 2026|Updated March 11, 2026 4:30 p.m.ReporterMatt DeGrood is a general assignment and breaking news reporter for the Houston Chronicle. A graduate of the University of Dallas, he joined the Chronicle in 2022. He has reported for community newspapers across Texas, including the Galveston County Daily News, the Nacogdoches Daily Sentinel and the Fort Bend Star.ReporterJohn Wayne Ferguson is a general assignment and breaking news reporter for the Houston Chronicle. A graduate of the University of New Hampshire, John joined the Chronicle in 2022. He was previously a reporter at The Galveston County Daily News. Follow him on Twitter at @johnwferguson.