Last week, the Dallas branch of Immigration and Customs Enforcement met with the city to discuss possibly giving Denton police immigration enforcement authority under the 287(g) program of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order in January requiring ICE to partner with local and state law enforcement, based on a determination by the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
Denton Mayor Gerard Hudspeth, City Manager Sara Hensley and Police Chief Jessica Robledo were at the meeting last week.
Though Hudspeth couldn’t be reached for comment, Dustin Sternbeck, the city’s chief communications officer, described the meeting as informational.
“The City has not agreed to work with or provide resources to the agency,” Sternbeck wrote in an email Wednesday. “No additional action is necessary.”
ICE contacted Hudspeth in early August to set up a meeting with city leaders to discuss the agency’s 287(g) program. It describes the program as protecting the U.S. “through the arrest and removal of aliens who undermine the safety of our nation’s communities and the integrity of U.S. immigration laws.”
Last month, Sternbeck told the Denton Record-Chronicle that any discussion that comes out of the meeting would be presented to council members.
Mayor Pro Tem Suzi Rumohr said that if Hudspeth wished “to propose anything as a result of the meeting, he would need to bring it before the City Council for discussion and a decision.”
Hudspeth did not respond to a request for comment by Wednesday evening.
Council member Brian Beck last month condemned any kind of collaboration between the city and the federal agency. Beck said a large majority of communication he’d received from community members was in opposition of current ICE tactics and behavior and supportive of the precarious situation many immigrant families — both those with legal status and those without — find themselves in.
Council member Vicki Byrd, a retired police officer and educator, shared news of the upcoming ICE meeting in an Aug. 13 Facebook post and wrote: “FYI … So this is a NO for me. Period.”