Perry Opponent Dem Bill White Border Security Plan: Sanctuary City Bill

Democrat Texas gubernatorial candidate Bill White unveils six-point plan to secure Texas-Mexico border

Bill White’s controversial Senate campaign ad that irked the Black community in Houston

“Quit handcuffing our officers so they can identify these criminal aliens, and get them off the street before they can kill police officers.”
Gary Blankinship, president of the Houston Police Officers Union to then Mayor Bill White, July 3, 2009

At first we thought, a Democrat running for office who wants to get tough on illegal immigration and secure the border with Mexico? The Democrat, former Houston Mayor Bill White running against Ricky Perry, the Republican governor of Texas. Reported by Houston Chronicle, White Unveils Border Security Plan:

“Plunging into the contentious issue of border security, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White called for a thousand new local law enforcement personnel and 250 state troopers to police the state’s border region. His proposal, part of a six-point plan to secure the Texas-Mexico border, is, in White’s words, “a comprehensive approach to dealing with this issue.”

“Texas needs to do a better job than it’s done the past nine and a half years under Rick Perry,” the candidate said at a Houston news conference Thursday. “This plan will bring results, not just political theater and broken promises.”

Since Bill White was the former mayor of Houston, the Houston Chronicle comment section, the “peanut gallery” provided a wealth of info, including the label, “Sanctuary City Bill”.

And,

“Yeah I believe him….he only allowed Houston to become a safe haven for illegals.”

And,

“White’s plan, given his past precedent as Houston’s Mayor, really is calling for 1,200 greeters at the border.”

Time to factcheck the comment section and whether Bill White earned the label of Sanctuary City Bill.

On July 3, 2009, the site VDare posted Houston Remains a Dangerous Sanctuary City Despite Police Objections:

Houston’s largest police union, citing the death of six officers during Mayor Bill White’s tenure, called on the mayor and City Council this week to hire more officers, restore $14 million in overtime pay and overturn the long-standing policy of not questioning residents about their immigration status.

In a letter to White, Gary Blankinship, president of the Houston Police Officers Union, called last week’s slaying of veteran officer Henry Canales a “trifeca failure” of federal, state and city government to protect citizens and police officers from criminal illegal immigrants.

VDare linked to an article published by the Houston Chronicle on June 2, 2009, Officers, mayor square off over immigration policy, Among other requests, Houston police union wants ban against asking about status overturned:

White responded with a news conference Thursday to make clear there would be no change in the department’s policy on illegal immigrants.

Adding four new cadet classes as the union wants would cost the city $20 million, requiring an increase in property taxes or a wide-ranging curtailment of city services that also would require laying off 500 civilian employees, White said.

Or, he said, the union could fund the cadet classes by voting to reduce their own pay by $4,000 an officer.

With six dead officers during White’s tenure as Mayor, White responded to the police union, unless you take a $4,000 cut in pay and if we add four new cadet classes, the city of Houston would have to sacrifice 500 civilian employees.

One month earlier the police union asked White and the city of Houston to end Houston’s policy of the police not allowed to question the immigration status of residents.

Houston Chronicle:

Gary Blankinship, president of the Houston Police Officers Union, said the September 2006 murder of officer Rodney Johnson and the severe injuries suffered by officer Rick Salter on March 5 are reasons to toughen immigration enforcement, including an end to the policy. Both officers were shot by illegal immigrants who had been deported from Houston, but returned to commit other crimes.

“It’s a strong issue,” Blankinship said. “My guys get tired of dealing with the criminal aliens out here, and it seems like the severity of the crimes is escalating and that’s frustrating to the rank and file.”

He stressed that calls for a change in the policy are not aimed at a wholesale roundup of illegal immigrants in Houston, a population the Greater Houston Partnership estimated last year at 420,000 in the 10-county Houston metropolitan area. It would help officers to weed out dangerous criminals in the undocumented community, he said.

Frank Michel, a spokesman for Mayor Bill White, said the administration has no plans to change a policy it considers crucial to policing city neighborhoods.

Rick Perry responded to White’s Six Point Border Security Plan:

Perry, speaking to reporters in Austin, said his opponent was light on both specifics and on new ideas.

“Welcome to the debate,” he said. “We have, for the last four years, been moving Texas forward. I don’t suppose he said anything about Washington’s abject failure in doing their job of defending our border. The state of Texas has made a substantial effort towards border security, more so than any other state — $230 million over the last two legislative sessions – so, again, his campaign is very high on criticism and very light on any new ideas.”

Perry said his administration had been calling for years for an additional thousand police officers and a thousand National Guard troops.

On October 7, 2009, the Houston Chronicle reported White steering clear of 287(g) concept:

Mayor Bill White is distancing himself from a controversial federal program that trains local law enforcement to identify suspected illegal immigrants, saying this week that he favors an automated immigration screening program in the city’s jails.

This spring, after a Houston Police Department officer was critically injured in a shooting by an illegal immigrant, White formally requested that Department of Homeland Security officials expedite his request that the city participate in the 287(g) program, which would train jailers to act as de-facto immigration agents.

ICE officials announced in July that HPD had been accepted into the program. But since then, the city and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have been locked in protracted negotiations over a range of issues related to the program, from how it should be administered to which agency should shoulder the costs.

White, who is running for U.S. Senate, now appears to be backing away from the program, saying ICE officials were “bureaucratic” in the negotiations. Vincent Picard, an ICE spokesman, declined comment on the Houston negotiations.

The Chronicle, September 2nd article reported:

He also said he would assist local law enforcement agencies in adopting Secure Communities, a program Houston adopted late in White’s tenure as mayor to identify criminals in the United States illegally and turn them over to federal authorities.

Fact: The Harris County Sheriff’s Office, not the city of Houston adopted the Secure Communities ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security system.

Houston Chronicle, July 13, 2009:

The database is part of an ICE program dubbed “Secure Communities,” which aims to identify and deport the most dangerous illegal immigrants in U.S. jails and prisons. Since Harris County started using the database in October, participation in the program has grown to 70 sites in the U.S., including 39 in Texas.

In the program’s first six months, more than 266,000 fingerprint submissions were run through the system nationally, generating more than 32,000 “matches” for suspects with both an immigration history and record of a prior conviction or charge. That includes 5,369 matches in Harris County.

Unless Bill White was Mayor of Harris County, White, or the Houston Chronicle can’t claim the ICE, DHS “Secure Communities” security system was “adopted” by “Houston” or the then Mayor.

Tags: Bill White, Democrats, elections, illegal immigration, Rick Perry, Texas