In a letter sent Thursday, Gov. Greg Abbott’s office warned Austin Mayor Kirk Watson the city could lose roughly $2.5 million in public safety grants and be forced to repay the money if the Austin Police Department does not roll back new limits on cooperation with ICE.
The warning escalates a rapidly intensifying clash between the state and the city over how far Austin police can go in limiting cooperation with local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities. It comes days after Attorney General Ken Paxton opened an investigation into the department’s immigration policy, and as state leaders argue the changes may violate a 2025 grant certification requiring Austin to “participate fully” with ICE, including notifying and detaining people at the request of the Department of Homeland Security. State leaders have issued similar warnings to Dallas and Houston, widening the clash with major Texas cities over limits on police cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
Thursday’s letter said the city agreed to those terms when the city manager accepted the state grant in February 2025, including a commitment not to adopt policies that limit coordination between law enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security.
Executive Director of the Commission on State Emergency Communications Andrew Friedrichs, who authored the letter on behalf of the state, said Austin’s recently-amended ICE policies “impede or restrict the notification of DHS regarding aliens in APD’s custody, and neither policy reflects full participation with DHS requests.”
“We believe the revised General Orders are consistent with state requirements, including SB4,” Watson said in a Thursday statement. “The City of Austin has made great progress on public safety— but our APD officers do not have the capacity—and should not be asked— to do the jobs of other entities. There is great irony that the state would try to punish the City for providing services that keep Austinites safe by threatening grants that keep Austin safe.”
Watson said the threatened grants include funding for services that support officers who have experienced trauma on the job and programs that improve law enforcement’s response to violent crimes against women.
“We will continue to focus on providing public safety. We will continue to support our officers. We will continue to fight for justice for sexual assault survivors and survivors of domestic abuse,” Watson said. “We don’t have the time and will not play into this political theater.”
A 2017 state law, SB 4, penalizes local and state agencies for refusing to enforce immigration laws, and has been at the center of ongoing legal and political fights over local control. APD revised its policies after a January case involving the detention and alleged deportation of a Honduran woman and her 5-year-old child sparked fierce community backlash, saying it aimed to limit some interactions with ICE while still complying with state law.
In that January case, Honduran-born Karen Gutiérrez Castellanos contacted police over a domestic disturbance in southwest Austin. She had not been charged with a crime, but an ICE administrative warrant appeared in her file. The responding officer contacted the federal agency, leading to her detention.
Under the general orders amended in March, Austin police officers “are not authorized to make an arrest or detention based solely on an ICE Administrative Warrant.”
The new city policy also instructs officers who encounter someone with an ICE administrative warrant to transport them to jail if there is a separate arrestable offense, or contact a supervisor if there is not. Officers who want to detain someone based on such a warrant must first get approval from a watch lieutenant, who may elevate the decision to a duty commander, adding additional layers of review.
The general orders state that if the duty commander determines the ICE request “is not reasonable or necessary, the officer shall release the subject and clear the scene.”
City Manager T.C. Broadnax said in a statement Thursday that updating the General Orders “was critical,” and referenced the more than 700,000 non-criminal, administrative warrants that had been added to the federal National Criminal Information Center database in early 2025. He said officers needed clear guidance on how to handle those warrants.
“We will explain our position so that funding for efforts focused on important programs — such as protecting and preparing the community against cybersecurity attacks and terrorism threats, providing support for sexual assault victims, and mental health programs for police officers — are not in danger,” Broadnax said.
The Public Safety Office gave the city until April 23 to respond and commit to repealing the amended general orders, or risk losing the grant, being forced to repay the funds and becoming ineligible for future state funding.
