An updated Austin Police Department policy prohibits officers from detaining or arresting a suspect who only has a noncriminal warrant from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis said last month at a town hall that ICE issued more than 700,000 administrative warrants in the past year. Unlike criminal warrants, administrative warrants are not signed by a judge and do not authorize searches. Providing a clear definition to distinguish them from criminal warrants is helpful, said Daniel Woodward, an attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project.
“It’s important that officers understand that nobody has looked at these warrants aside from ICE, and nobody has reviewed the probable cause behind them,” Woodward said.
APD did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Police officers should arrest the person and move them to jail if “there is a separate arrestable criminal charge,” according to APD’s policy, updated March 5. Without a separate criminal charge, officers should contact a supervisor to provide information about the administrative warrant.
“Mandating that the officer do something is likely to lead to further action, which may include calling ICE,” Woodward said.
Woodward said police may encounter someone with an administrative warrant in noncriminal contexts, such as a person who is at the scene of a crime or a victim who has called for help.
“For example, people who call for help with domestic violence, the police will often, when they show up on the scene, take their name, their date of birth, and run it through a background check,” Woodward said. “If there are administrative warrants, they will show up, so the police could end up detaining that person.”
Davis said at the town hall that APD responded to a disturbance call in January from a mother who had an administrative warrant placed on her, which was prior to this policy. APD notified ICE of this, and the mother, along with her 5-year-old child, were deported to Honduras. Woodward said incidents like these reduce trust within communities.
“This policy, I don’t know that it does too much to restore that trust,” Woodward said. “It will really depend on what happens on the ground.”
Officers or their supervisors have the option to contact ICE, according to the policy. This part of the policy is in place because of a 2017 state law that prevents police departments from implementing a policy that bars officers from contacting immigration enforcement.
The new part of the policy also complies with the Fourth Amendment, which prevents an officer from detaining someone or prolonging detention unreasonably if there is no independent criminal basis, Woodward said.
However, Woodward also said ICE asking for officers to detain a person without a criminal violation “until ICE agents can come to the scene to arrest the individual” is likely unconstitutional. He said it is unconstitutional because the policy is asking local law enforcement to detain someone at the request of ICE solely on a civil immigration violation, rather than a criminal offense.
Austin Equity and Inclusion, which houses Immigrant Affairs programs in the city, will host a virtual event on April 2 at 6 p.m. to explain recent immigration policy updates.
