Dallas Police Chief Rejects $25 Million ICE Contract; Community Backs His Decision
All cities should reject partnering with ICE’s 287(g) program
Deep in the heart of Texas, a red state that’s voted for Republican presidents in every election since 1980, the Dallas police chief, serving the third largest urban metropolis, rejected a $25 million 287(g) program contract to partner with the Department of Homeland Security’s highly criticized Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
ICE’s 287(g) program dates back to 1996’s Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act that promotes a “task force model” where local and state police enforce federal immigration procedures and laws through two types of agreements.
According to the American Immigration Council:
The jail enforcement model (JEM) allows deputized officers to interrogate suspected noncitizens who arrested on state or local charges to determine their immigration status and issue immigration detainers, administrative requests from ICE to law enforcement agencies to hold a non-citizen for up to 48 hours after they would otherwise be released. As of June 30, 2025 ICE had signed 287(g) JEM agreements with 111 law enforcement agencies in 27 states.
The warrant service officer (WSO) model: ICE trains, certifies, and authorizes selected state and local law enforcement officers to execute ICE administrative warrants. These officers are permitted to perform the arrest functions of an immigration officer within the law enforcement agency’s jails and/or correctional facilities. The local law enforcement officer are not authorized by ICE to interrogate alleged noncitizens about their immigration status. As of June 30, 2025, ICE had signed 287(g) WSO agreements with 266 law enforcement agencies in 34 states.
“In the past, the 287(g) program has been costly for localities, has historically targeted individuals with little or no criminal history, and has harmed the relationship between police and local communities,” the American Immigration Council reports.
Every day we are seeing terrifying footage of the “execution of ICE administrative warrants” by masked men. Not even judicial warrants merit the grotesquely inhumane violations of the Fourth Amendment everyday people are capturing on their cell phones all over the U.S.
Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux did not explicitly reject the proposed partnership when on grounds of ICE’s escalating and credible human and civil rights violations, but at a November 6, 2025 public hearing, the people of Dallas did.
Addressing the joint hearing called by Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson between the Public Safety and Government Efficiency Committees, Chief Comeaux clarified that in order to meet the contract’s requirement of 50 daily arrests of “undocumented immigrants” the police department would have to reallocate up to 250 DPD officers to act in a federal ICE-like capacity pursuing and detaining people. ICE apparently claimed that DPD officers “would have to be trained and participate in 287(g)” but denied that the 50-per-day arrest minimum was a contract condition of payment or full reimbursement.
Chief Comeaux referenced the immediate and negative impact such a large staff reallocation would have on Dallas residents.
“You take 250 officers away from patrol, it would hurt us really bad. Call times would skyrocket” Chief Comeaux said. “They would have to work going to McDonald’s, Burger King, Home Depot, trying to find illegal immigrants to reach that quota.”
(It is disappointing to hear a police chief use dehumanizing slang but perhaps after Thursday’s hearing he’ll use more accurate language to describe human beings.)
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson publicly pushed back, stating that elected officials should have been included in the decision-making process in the first place, and claimed that the money could have been used to hire additional officers at no expense to the city.
City Councilor Jaime Resendez dismissed the mayor’s claims as a “callous, political stunt”, “reckless, self-serving leadership” and in a joint statement with three other city councilors called the potential partnership with ICE “a betrayal of trust to Dallas communities.”
At the November 6 hearing, 70 community members testified for more than two hours at the meeting called by Mayor Johnson and 91% spoke in favor of Chief Comeaux’s decision.
City Councilor Gay Donnell Willis said she was proud to see “speakers from every district” speak on the same issue for the first time.
2,193 residents wrote letters to their city councilors encouraging them to vote against any partnership with ICE.
The Dallas City Council voted unanimously at the joint committee meeting to indefinitely postpone a decision to consider joining ICE’s 287(g) program.
It is not a permanent victory. But it marks an important shift in a conservative state. Those who believe in the rule of law and due process can count this as a battle won in what will most likely be a war that gets worse before it gets better.
Starting in 2026, a recently passed Texas Senate bill (SB8) will require “sheriffs in counties operating jails or contracting with jail vendors will be required to dedicate local resources to new immigration enforcement duties, even without guaranteed additional state funding. Failure to comply can result in legal action by the Attorney General,” according to the Dallas Observer.
Texas cities currently remain able to determine their own levels of resource allocation and cooperation with ICE.
Thank you, Chief Comeaux.
Thank you, Dallas City Council.
And thank you, Dallas residents. Your neighbors are grateful for your integrity.
This is what courageous leadership looks like. This is what representative democracy looks like.