A recent 911 call in Austin led to the arrest, detention, and deportation of a U.S. citizen child. This incident underscores how collaboration between the Austin Police Department (APD) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is putting children and families at risk and eroding public trust.
CDF-Texas urges Austin residents to contact city leaders and demand immediate action to protect families and uphold community safety.
Take Action
Email the following local officials to express your concern.
- Mayor Kirk Watson: Kirk.Watson@austintexas.gov;
- Police Chief Lisa Davis: Lisa.Davis@austintexas.gov
- City Manager T.C. Broadnax: TC.broadnax@austintexas.gov; and
- Your city council member: Find contact information for the city council member who represents you here.
Ask city officials to take the following steps:
- Prioritize public safety. Prioritize the use of city policing resources to protect Austin families, not to support federal immigration enforcement that endangers communities and undermines trust.
- Support harmed families. Fund legal aid and support services for children and families impacted by APD collaboration with ICE, including assistance for children who are separated from parents and for the safe return of deported U.S. citizen children who wish to reunite with family in Austin.
- Ensure proper training. Train all APD officers to understand the differences between criminal warrants, administrative warrants, and ICE detainers and to respond appropriately within the limits of the law when they become aware of an administrative immigration warrant or receive a federal request to assist with immigration enforcement.
- Follow Austin City Council’s 2018 Freedom City resolution.
This resolution was designed to help the City protect residents’ legal rights while complying with Senate Bill 4. It requires city leadership to ensure policing resources are prioritized and that requests for federal immigration enforcement assistance are vetted and scrutinized at higher levels of the department, with attention to urgency, criminal nexus, and officer training.
Why This Matters
APD does not have an agreement with ICE. While state law requires compliance with ICE detainer requests, APD officers have no legal obligation to assist with administrative immigration warrants. These warrants are not criminal warrants and do not carry the same legal authority as judicial warrants issued by a state or federal court.
The Trump administration has reportedly added more than 700,000 new administrative warrants to the National Crime Information Center database used for background checks. As a result, APD officers are increasingly likely to encounter these documents in routine policing.
Public safety depends on trust. Communities cannot be safe if people fear that calling 911, reporting a crime, serving as a witness, or seeking emergency help could result in detention or deportation.
What Happened in Austin
In the early morning hours of Monday, January 5, APD officers responded to a 911 call. Officers did not find an ongoing disturbance or injured individuals. After running a background check, they reportedly discovered an administrative ICE warrant for an immigrant mother from Honduras who was present at the scene, and they called ICE. ICE agents arrested the mother and her five-year-old daughter, who is a U.S. citizen. Within days, both were deported to Honduras without an opportunity to speak with an attorney, appear before a judge, or make arrangements for the child to remain in the United States.
For several days after the arrest, neither the mother nor the child appeared in ICE’s online locator system, and an attorney assisting the family could not obtain their location from immigration officials. Grassroots Leadership, a local nonprofit organization, attempted to help family members find the pair so that custody arrangements could be made for the child to stay with relatives.
According to Grassroots Leadership, the mother briefly spoke with her brother by phone on Wednesday morning, January 7, and said immigration officials were preparing to deport both her and her daughter. On Sunday, January 11, she called relatives from Honduras to report that she and her daughter had both been deported. She also said that before their removal, they were detained in a hotel in the San Antonio area and told not to disclose their location.
How Discretionary APD Collaboration with ICE Harms Children and Families
It undermines public safety.
Fear of ICE involvement discourages immigrant residents from reporting crimes, seeking help to escape violence or abuse, or calling for emergency services for themselves or their children.
It increases the risk of violence and civil rights violations.
Since the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown began in June 2025, The Trace has documented 16 incidents of immigration enforcement agents opening fire and 15 incidents where agents held someone at gunpoint. Immigration agents have killed four people, including Renee Good, and injured eight others. During a September 30, 2025, night raid on an apartment building in Chicago, agents zip-tied children and detained U.S. citizens for hours. Pro Publica has also identified more than 40 cases over the past year in which agents used chokeholds or other techniques that restrict breathing on immigrants and U.S. citizens.
It exposes families to dangerous detention conditions.
ICE detains individuals and families, including children, in horrific conditions marked by medical neglect, hunger, and inadequate access to clean drinking water. Families are often pressured into accepting voluntary removal as a way out, without being informed of their legal rights or allowed to consult an attorney. Last year, 32 people died in ICE custody, making 2025 the deadliest year for immigration detention since 2004.
It traumatizes children and separates families.
ICE arrests arising out of traffic stops, wellness checks, and 911 responses frequently place children in harm’s way. These actions have led to the deportation of U.S. citizen children and family separation when parents are detained or deported. The harm has already been happening in Austin. Last year, two U.S. citizen children were deported with their mother after an ICE arrest following a traffic stop in north Austin. At Austin’s Guerrero Thompson Elementary School, teachers have reported students becoming withdrawn or crying inconsolably after losing family members to ICE detention. Educators also report more children arriving at school hungry after a family breadwinner is detained or deported.
Take Action Now
Tell the City of Austin to immediately take steps to protect and support children and families harmed by APD’s collaboration with ICE. Public safety, civil rights, and the well-being of Austin’s children depend on it.
Author: Trudy Taylor Smith, senior administrator of Policy and Advocacy, CDF-Texas