We, undersigned, **call on the City of Austin to protect Austin residents from the violence of ICE and DHS** by immediately prohibiting the Austin Police Department from supporting any attempt by ICE or DPS to question, detain, and deport Austin residents and visitors.
We condemn the Austin Police Department’s continued cooperation with federal law enforcement agencies who verifiably and repeatedly violate people’s constitutional rights, operate outside of their jurisdiction, and ignore due process.
We call on Austin City Council, Mayor Kirk Watson, and City Manager T.C. Broadnax to **immediately pass a city ordinance that prevents any APD employee from helping immigration agents** serving administrative warrants to Austin residents, including but not limited to:
Running a warrant check for ICE/DHS administrative warrants
– Serving ICE/DHS administrative warrants
– Detaining people on behalf of ICE/DHS
– Handing people over to ICE/DHS who are in APD custody
– Alerting these ICE/DHS to the location of Austin residents and visitors
We call on Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis to immediately **retrain the entire APD staff** to prevent city employees from knowingly or unknowingly notifying ICE of the residency address or current location of Austinites with ICE/DPS administrative warrants.
Austin Police Department’s assistance to ICE and DPS is quickly eroding the remaining trust Austinites have in our local government and local law enforcement.
ICE and Border Patrol have **consistently escalated harm against civilians across the United States.** Here in Austin, they are racially profiling our communities, stopping Austin drivers without cause, and detaining and deporting our neighbors without due process.
Last week, the Austin Police Department responded to a 911 call. The department ran a warrant check for the women who had called them, which turned up an administrative immigration warrant. As a result, an **Austin mother and her child, who is a U.S. citizen, were taken into custody by federal immigration officials,** not allowed to share the details of their detainment with their family or local advocacy organizations, and deported even though the child is an American citizen.
This is only one of many stories from APD collaboration with federal immigration authorities.
If the City of Austin wants to claim that **our police department exists to serve and protect** our residents, the city should provide full transparency around the actions and policies of city employees, if city employees are even tangentially involved, when our neighbors go missing from their homes and workplaces.
APD in any way facilitating the detainment of Austin residents by any federal immigration department significantly impacts safety in our community by making it **less likely that immigrants, undocumented people, people of color, and anyone associated with the anti-ICE movement will report crimes** or cooperate with local law enforcement.
Immigration agents are increasing their violence and harassment of American residents, including undocumented immigrants, immigrants on valid visas, protestors, journalists, first responders, doctors, lawyers, bystanders, and legal observers. They have released chemical weapons into vehicles and on school property. They flagrantly and repeatedly violate their own use of force guidelines, act outside of their jurisdiction, and ignore due process altogether.
These agents and their lawlessness pose a significant bodily threat to the safety of every Austinite, and **we demand that the City of Austin act with expediency to prevent further detainment and deportations due to the actions of city employees.**
We demand city guarantees that the department is refusing to search for and serve ICE and DHS warrants, and new APD policies that materially protect Austin residents and visitors from ICE and DHS violence.