Immigrant rights organizations rallied at City Hall on Tuesday to ask the mayor and the city’s Police Department to create formal policies to protect Houston’s immigrants from Senate Bill 4, a controversial law that would allow state law enforcement to arrest anyone suspected of entering Texas illegally from Mexico. 

The law is temporarily blocked from going into effect by an injunction, but advocates fear its future implementation if Houston officials don’t issue a formal policy. 

“Don’t neglect us. Protect us!” those in the crowd chanted outside City Hall on Tuesday before speaking before the mayor and council members.

“It’s time that they do something, and they don’t turn their backs on us,” said Marleny Crisanto, a member of Workers Defense Project, a labor and immigrant rights organization that coordinated the rally with other Houston immigrant groups. “They’re just promises, and they don’t fulfill them.” 

Houston Mayor John Whitmire voted against the law as a member of the Texas legislature and has called it unconstitutional. Advocates asked him Tuesday to cement his stance in an executive order. They also requested that the Houston Police Department create an “explicit standard of reasonable suspicion” to prevent racial profiling and commit to issuing citations under “cite and release,” so that immigrants are not arrested unnecessarily. 

Without a formal written policy, advocates say immigrant communities remain vulnerable to the “whim of whoever is there to enforce it.”

“If we’ve learned anything from the Trump administration, if it’s not written, it doesn’t count,” said Jennefer Canales-Peláez, Texas policy attorney and strategist at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. 

Crisanto, a Honduran immigrant who has lived in Houston for more than 30 years, called the law “cruel and racist.” She was deported to Honduras in 2001 after she was arrested for driving without a license, separating her from her four children before returning to Houston. 

“I have felt frustrated,” Crisanto said. “I feel nervous and I’m scared because I also see the community’s fear.”

Mayor Whitmire reassured Crisanto and advocates that law enforcement policies have not changed while SB 4 makes its way through the courts.

“It does, unfortunately, divide the community, and what we’re about at City Hall is uniting our community,” said Whitmire, who called the law “unworkable.”

Whitmire’s position has been that the courts will strike the law down.

Houston Police Officers’ Union President Douglas Griffith said Tuesday that officers have not been given guidance on what to do if the law is ultimately upheld. A Police Department spokesperson referred questions to the mayor’s office.

SB 4, as the bill is known, creates a Class B misdemeanor for illegal entry that can be punished with up to 180 days in county jail and/or a fine up to $2,000. A repeated offense is elevated to a state jail felony. The law also gives a judge or county magistrate the ability to order a person to return to Mexico. 

The law was immediately challenged on constitutional grounds by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and the U.S. Department of Justice after Gov. Greg Abbott signed it in December. The legal challenge to SB 4 has ricocheted between a federal appeals court and the Supreme Court since a temporary injunction was issued on Feb. 29. It briefly went into effect on March 19 only to be halted hours later. 

Abbott has criticized the injunction blocking the law and has said that the state will not back down. 

“Texas has the right to defend itself because of President Biden’s ongoing failure to fulfill his duty to protect our state from the invasion at our southern border,” he said in a Feb. 29 statement.

Some law enforcement in Houston’s surrounding counties, including the sheriff’s offices of Fort Bend and Chambers County, have issued statements saying they would not prioritize enforcement of the law. However, others have been hesitant to issue formal statements. 

A 2017 Texas law banning sanctuary cities makes it illegal for local authorities to prevent peace officers from asking about immigration status. 

Law enforcement departments have since treaded carefully when issuing statements or policies protecting immigrant communities. 

But advocates say Houston law enforcement cooperation with ICE has often gone beyond what’s required by law. They say the city can still limit the implementation of SB 4 without violating the 2017 law. 

“There are limitations but we don’t have to go above and beyond,” said Canales-Peláez. “We should still be in the business of protecting our communities.”

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