SAN ANTONIO – A large, loudly anti-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) crowd filled San Antonio City Council chambers during a lengthy special council meeting Thursday.
Amid the Trump administration’s high-profile immigration crackdown, the special meeting had been called to go over when San Antonio police cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
The line to get into council chambers wrapped around the corner of the building at which 180 people were signed up to speak, though not all eventually did during five hours of public comment.
Some carried signs, and nearly all of those who came to the podium to address the city council criticized the tactics of ICE officials and urged the city not to cooperate with the agency.
“There will be people on this council who say, ‘Well, legally, we have to do this or that.’ Legality does not equal mortality,” said Ariana Rodriguez.
Matilda Miller with the 6W Project called ICE a “criminal and terrorist organization.”
“You have an obligation to protect the people of this city, to follow the law and the Constitution,” she said. “That remains true even when the federal and state government break the law, and fail in their duty, and turn on the people like they are doing now. So if you don’t have the backbone, you shouldn’t have taken the job.”
Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones recessed the meeting three times as the crowd jeered at the few speakers who were supportive of ICE — twice because of disruptions during the comments of Bexar County Precinct 3 Commissioner Grant Moody, a Republican and the first speaker.
“And there should be zero tolerance for attacks on those who serve, whether they wear the uniform of SAPD, BCSO, the FBI, ICE, or any other federal agency,” Moody said, drawing a chorus of boos from the crowd at the mention of “ICE.”
In an X post Thursday afternoon, ICE said cooperation between agencies and law enforcement is necessary to prevent chaos.
“When there’s no cooperation between state/local agencies and federal law enforcement, chaos erupts,” the post stated. “You’re not seeing chaos during ICE operations in states like Texas, Louisiana or Florida. Why? Because those states work with ICE to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens.”
State law requires police to cooperate with federal authorities on immigration enforcement, though San Antonio Police Department Chief William McManus emphasized San Antonio police do not enforce immigration laws themselves.
“The direction that has been given to the police officers, again, is that they don’t have the authority to arrest somebody on the sole basis of an administrative warrant, and that they should contact ICE to address or detain that individual at the scene,” said Deputy City Manager Maria Villagomez.
According to city statistics, ICE issued detainers on 111 of the more than 51,000 people arrested by SAPD in 2025.
McManus said requests to assist ICE are rare and happened only twice in 2025.
In July, SAPD provided three officers for perimeter security for a Homeland Security Investigations “enforcement action” at a North Side seafood retailer. According to a memo from the city attorney at the time, 12 people were detained.
In December, McManus said the Department of Homeland Security requested SAPD and EMS help for a suspect who was resisting arrest. Three officers were sent to help, he said.
SAPD officers also helped with a high-profile raid on an unauthorized night club in November. Though it resulted in the detention of more than 140 immigrants, SAPD officials said they were there at the FBI’s request to help with a narcotics search warrant.
City Attorney Andy Segovia said San Antonio is the only Texas city to have been sued over the state’s 2017 “sanctuary cities” bill, SB 4.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a pair of lawsuits following a December 2017 case in which SAPD released 12 undocumented immigrants found inside a tractor-trailer on the East Side instead of turning them over to federal authorities.
The city settled with the state in April 2022 for $300,000.