Sixteen elected officials in Austin, Texas — led by U.S. Representative Greg Casar and joined by Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, Travis County Judge Andy Brown and U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett — sent an open letter on Thursday, November 13, 2026, urging the owners and operators of parking lots and garages across Austin to prohibit U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from using their properties as staging areas for enforcement operations, Casar's office announced.

Source: Office of U.S. Representative Greg Casar

The letter asks property owners to commit to barring ICE from using their lots as a staging ground for operations and to make that prohibition clear to the agency. It is not an ordinance and carries no penalty: the coalition is deliberately using private property rights, rather than a city rule that could invite a preemption fight with the State of Texas, according to KVUE's reporting on the letter.

Source: KVUE Austin

The signatories are Congressman Greg Casar (D-TX), Congressman Lloyd Doggett (TX-37), Mayor Kirk Watson, Travis County Judge Andy Brown, Austin City Council members Vanessa Fuentes, Jose Velasquez, Jose 'Chito' Vela, Ryan Alter, Krista Lane, Mike Siegel, Paige Ellis and Zohaib 'Zo' Qadri, Travis County Commissioners Brigid Shea, Ann Howard and George Morales, and Texas State Representative Lulu Flores, according to the release from Casar's office.

In the letter itself, the officials write: "We have seen in cities like New York how using lots for staging can directly lead to horrific violence." Casar's office said it was notified last month that ICE used Austin parking lots as staging areas, in at least two instances, for the transportation of immigrants to deportation centers.

How the staging came to light

KXAN's investigative team reported earlier this month that it observed detainees being transported from a secluded parking lot at a northeast Austin business park, and the property owner said ICE was never authorized to use the private lot. According to Casar's office, in at least one confirmed instance federal agents staged on private property without the owner's permission. Coverage of the letter also points to the local backdrop the coalition cites: arrests reported outside churches and food pantries, and the September 20, 2026 non-fatal shooting of 28-year-old Venezuelan delivery driver Wilber Garces Perez by an ICE agent during a traffic stop in North Austin — a shooting for which Casar has separately demanded an independent investigation and the release of full footage.

DHS pushes back

The Department of Homeland Security responded sharply to the letter. In a statement reported by KVUE, a DHS spokesperson said: "Rep. Casar should be grateful to our brave law enforcement officers for cleaning up the streets of Austin since he won't. Luckily, no terminated parking will stop ICE from deporting criminal illegal aliens to make Austin safe again." The agency further asserted that its presence in parking lots is authorized under federal law and is standard operational practice. Those are the department's claims, stated as its position; the letter's signatories dispute that staging on private lots without an owner's consent is lawful or safe.

The Austin push is part of a wider Texas shift this month. In Houston, Mayor John Whitmire signed a November 6 executive order limiting when Houston police contact ICE — a move Awaaz Punjab has already reported — and Austin's Mayor Watson has separately asked his police chief and city manager to revise Austin's own policy on ICE warrants, according to Texas reporting. State officials, including the Texas Attorney General's office in past disputes, have argued that Texas law restricts how far cities can go in limiting cooperation with federal enforcement, which is why the Austin coalition chose a voluntary property-rights appeal instead of a binding local rule.

Why this matters on the ground

Austin sits on Interstate 35, one of the busiest north-south trucking corridors in the United States, and the city's immigrant workforce — including many Punjabi and South Asian truck drivers, warehouse workers and small-business owners who live along the I-35 corridor between Austin and San Antonio — is directly affected by where and how federal enforcement stages its operations. Staging in commercial lots means enforcement vehicles assemble in the same parking areas used by shoppers, workers and delivery drivers, which is exactly the visibility the letter's signatories say is frightening residents away from schools, workplaces and police reporting.

What happens next

There is no vote scheduled and no law changes hands with this letter: the next step is in the hands of Austin's parking lot and garage operators, who must decide whether to post and enforce a prohibition, and of ICE, which DHS says will continue its operations regardless. Casar's office has published the full signed letter, and local outlets including KVUE and KXAN are tracking responses from lot operators and the agency. Awaaz Punjab will update this story if major Austin operators publicly commit to the prohibition, if ICE changes its staging practice in the city, or if the State of Texas moves against the coalition's approach.