Texas Governor Threatens To Remove From Office Sheriffs Not Fully Cooperating With Immigration Officials

AUSTIN, TX — Gov. Greg Abbott said in an interview with Fox News Wednesday he will seek for passage of laws that would remove Texas sheriffs from elected office if they fail to cooperate with federal Immigration & Customs Enforcement officials in detaining people thought to be undocumented immigrants for deportation.

The interview doubled down on threats to punish newly elected Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez who has said her office would not honor across-the-board ICE detainers like her predecessor, Greg Hamilton (who chose not to run for reelection). Instead, Hernandez said she would only honor such requests if a undocumented detainee were a hardened felon (with murder or sexual assault charges, for instance) and if the detainer request were accompanied with a judicial warrant or court order.

"We will remove her from office," Abbott told Fox News when asked what would be done with Hernandez if she refused to reverse her stance. Previously, Abbott threatened to withhold nearly $2 million on grants meant for law enforcement agencies is she stood firm with her position, but Abbott's vow to craft laws to have her and other like-minded sheriffs is a new, and escalated, threat.

Abbott's renewed forcefulness on deportations came on the same day that Donald Trump announced his administration would crack down on so-called "sanctuary cities" that don't cooperate with ICE as part of their law enforcement duties. Like Abbott, Trump has threatened to cut off funding to law enforcement agencies not displaying full cooperation with ICE in seeking deportations.

Under Hamilton, Austin emerged as one of the nation's most prolific deporters by virtue of its cooperation with ICE's "Secure Communities" program that honored ICE detainers. Through the use of such detainers, people who were arrested for even misdemeanors were held for up to 72 hours, sometimes without formal charges, could be detained under suspicion of being undocumented until an immigration official could arrive from as far as San Antonio to retrieve them.

Shortly after being sworn in, Sheriff Hernandez filmed a video explaining her priorities as sheriff in terms of detentions. Hernandez—like former Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo, now chief in Houston—believes that aggressive immigration crackdowns have a corrosive effect on immigrant-heavy communities. Acevedo has said the net effect of such crackdowns is to build mistrust of law enforcement in those communities, whose members are averse to report crimes (including rape) for fear of their resident status being discovered.

Democratic lawmakers were quick to condemn Abbott's nationally broadcast threats against a duly elected official. Hernandez secured her post handily against a Republican challenger with 60 percent of the vote, running largely on her softer stance on immigration crackdowns than her predecessor in Travis County, where its Austin seat boasts of a more progressive vibe.

“Neither Gov. Abbott nor the Legislature have any authority to remove a duly elected sheriff, whose office is established by the Texas Constitution,” U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett said in the prepared statement. “The governor shows contempt for both the Texas Constitution and the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution.”

He disputed Abbott's categorization of Austin as being a "sanctuary city," saying: “Ours is not a ‘sanctuary’ city or county, but a refuge from anti-immigrant hysteria, with a strong commitment to effective law enforcement,” Doggett’s statement read. “Gov. Abbott and his cronies have tried to remove me personally from office more than once; he will be equally unsuccessful trying to eliminate others who don’t fix his narrow Republican political mold.”

Manny Garcia, the Texas Democratic Party’s deputy executive director, also rose to Hernandez's defense. “No one made Greg Abbott the emperor of Texas," he wrote in a prepared statment. "He cannot overturn the will of Texas voters.”

But Abbott has defenders of his own. On Wednesday, the GOP caucus in the Texas Senate sent its own letter to Hernandez with similar verbiage as the one Abbott sent the sheriff last week. The letter—signed by Central Texas Republican lawmakers Dawn Buckingham, Donna Campbell and Charles Schwertner, and others— dismissed Hernandez's stance as a "reckless and blatant political stunt."

Abbott has been strident in his opposition to immigration, both documented and undocumented. In addition to his forceful calls for deportation of all undocumented immigrants from Texas, he also directed the state to pull out of the longstanding agreements to house immigrants under the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program, including an influx from war-torn Syria. In pulling out of the arrangement in September, Abbott claimed federal officials hadn't made adequate assurances those seeking refuge in the U.S. don't pose a danger to the state's security—even though some of those same officials provided Patch with copies of correspondence previously sent to the governor detailing the thoroughness of their immigrant vetting process.

But in calling for such crackdowns, Abbott now has a most formidable ally sharing his deportation quest: Trump, who on Wednesday also ordered for construction of a wall along the U.S. southern border with Mexico, making good on one of the major campaign promises made to his political base.

>>> Gov. Greg Abbott official photo above