While cities in blue states like Minnesota and California resist ICE enforcement, some Democrat-led cities in red states, like Austin, Texas, are in a heated debate over how to respond.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
In many Republican-led states, police officers are required to cooperate with federal immigration agents. And that leaves liberal cities in those conservative states debating how to respond when they don’t want to spend time on immigration enforcement. Mose Buchele from member station KUT gives us a view from Austin, Texas.
MOSE BUCHELE, BYLINE: City council members opened up a recent public forum here with a line they repeat often – in Austin, undocumented immigrants should be able to call the police without fear of being deported. Here’s Chito Vela, Austin mayor pro tem.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHITO VELA: We are committed, making sure that we are keeping our immigrant community as safe as we possibly can and supported.
BUCHELE: But in Texas, there are few options when it comes to stopping police from reporting people to ICE. In one recent case, a mother and her young daughter were deported after the mom called local police to report a disturbance. Stopping that kind of thing was what this meeting with Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis was about.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
VELA: With that said, let me go ahead and turn it over to Chief Davis.
(APPLAUSE)
LISA DAVIS: Thank you for being here. This is amazing, to see this show-out.
BUCHELE: In Texas, state police are empowered to arrest suspected unauthorized immigrants. Many counties partner with ICE to get grants and funding. Those agreements will become mandatory for all counties by the end of the year. And Davis said Texas cities cannot prevent local officers from calling ICE if they see fit.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DAVIS: There is a rule of law that I have to follow as the chief of police here in the state of Texas. But what we can do…
(BOOING)
DAVIS: What we can do is create…
BUCHELE: It was a tense evening. On one side, local officials explaining that breaking state law could lead to cuts to funding or them getting removed from office, on the other side, many in the audience calling for resistance, no matter the cost. Robert Salter (ph) is a criminal defense lawyer who was one of the most vocal that night.
ROBERT SALTER: There is nothing that prevents this police chief, these city council members from refusing to cooperate with the state.
BUCHELE: Heated public debates like this have also erupted in San Antonio, Dallas and Houston. Democratic cities in Tennessee, Georgia and Florida are also seeing locals push back against red state laws that mandate ICE police partnerships. Kristin Etter is director of the Texas Immigration Law Council. She says far more people are detained in states that have these policies.
KRISTIN ETTER: It’s not visible. It doesn’t present the same way as it does in Minneapolis or Chicago or Los Angeles. And so most people, again, would have no idea that this is happening every day all around us in a very quiet way.
BUCHELE: Quiet, that is, until people start shouting.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Chanting) Make it right.
DAVIS: Sir.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Chanting) Make it right, make it right.
BUCHELE: At that public meeting in Austin, Police Chief Lisa Davis announced plans to change city policy. Officers can still contact ICE. But the new rules will give police higher-ups a say in whether they can hold people until ICE arrives to arrest them.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DAVIS: And I can tell you, the priority is not waiting for ICE to respond on a civil detainer.
BUCHELE: Officials think it’s a way to thread the needle between local priorities and state law. But after the event, immigrant advocate Carmen Zubieta (ph) said it won’t help people who fear deportation feel any better about calling the police for help.
CARMEN ZUBIETA: (Speaking Spanish).
BUCHELE: “To gain confidence, you have to earn it. And nothing they’re doing is giving us confidence,” she said.
For NPR News, I’m Mose Buchele in Austin.
(SOUNDBITE OF KIKAGAKU MOYO’S “TREE SMOKE”)
Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
