Law enforcement officers in Dallas, Texas, announced they would not work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to target illegal immigrants.
Michael Igo, the interim chief of the Dallas Police Department, said this week his officers would not be assisting ICE or any other federal agencies in removing people in the country illegally from his city.
Igo’s pledge came during a meeting Wednesday at Familia Bethel Internacional church. The gathering was the first in a series of five community outreach meetings the DPD has planned this month as Dallas has experienced multiple protests from residents speaking out against ICE deportations. The five meetings are meant to reassure people without legal status that no arrests or raids will be conducted in churches, schools, or hospitals and to urge against “underreporting of crimes due to fear” of being reported to ICE.
“I need you guys to continue to call the police, to not be afraid to come out of your homes to go to work, to send our kids to school,” Igo said.
“There’s no room for fear in our community,” the police chief continued in a post to X Wednesday evening. “I am meeting with stakeholders across Dallas to reassure them we’re here to serve and protect all Dallas residents and are committed to enforcing city ordinances and state laws.”
Due to backlash from the Wednesday meeting, the DPD has announced it would postpone a similar gathering scheduled for Thursday.
The DPD’s stance on helping ICE comes as a sharp rebuke to the Texas governor’s push to aid immigration agents’ operations to remove illegal immigrants from the country. Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) shares a close working relationship with President Donald Trump and border czar Tom Homan, visiting the White House earlier this month to meet with the two men and praise the new administration’s toughened border policies. At the time, Abbott offered up the use of two military bases in his state to house detained illegal immigrants if needed, as well as 4,000 jail cells that could be used as temporary detention facilities.
“We’re just continuing to find ways we can assist the Trump administration in finally securing our border,” Abbott said.
Early this month, Abbott also authorized state police to help ICE agents capture 5,400 illegal immigrants in Texas who have an arrest warrant.
“I have authorized our [Texas] National Guard that have been on the border for about four years now. They have been deputized to assist ICE, doing everything ICE would do, such as apprehending, arresting, and deporting,” the governor said during a Fox News interview early this month. “In addition to that, the Texas Department of Public Safety is embedded with ICE on operations across the entire state of Texas to root out, arrest, and assist in the detention and deportation of anybody here illegally.”
After Dallas police declined to show similarly effusive support for ICE, Abbott’s office urged local law enforcement to aid immigration enforcement agents in a statement to Newsweek that called on “city and county officials across the state” to “fully cooperate” with federal deportation efforts.
The mayor of Dallas, a longtime Democrat who joined the Republican Party in the fall of 2023, issued strong support for cracking down on illegal immigration in his city after Trump won reelection.
“Of course, we’d support that,” Mayor Eric Johnson said during a Fox News interview in November. “Of course, we’d stand by President Trump in an effort to get rid of people in our country illegally who have violent criminal records or who commit violent criminal acts here. But even more than that, people need to understand it’s a strain on our school system, it’s a strain on our hospital system, there are hidden costs to having a porous, open border, and we need to shut that down.”
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ICE field offices across the country have reportedly been told to pursue a target goal of 75 arrests per day. On Jan. 26, the Dallas field office confirmed it had made 84 arrests during targeted operations in Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington, Irving, Garland, and Collin County, including illegal immigrants charged or convicted of crimes of a sexual nature against children.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Abbott’s office for comment.