New Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux said Thursday that the department’s stance on the issue “hasn’t changed.”
DALLAS — New Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux said his department’s policies on immigration enforcement have not changed — despite recent headlines indicating otherwise and continued questions from the city’s Community Police Oversight Board.
“Since I’ve been here I’ve said the exact same thing about immigration,” Comeaux said. “We’re going to do the right thing, we’re going to do our jobs. And we will not be searching for immigrants. We have no special programs where we’re searching for immigrants.”
Comeaux’s comments at a Thursday press conference come after he was quoted by Fox News in an interview this week as saying, “If we come in contact with anyone that doesn’t have status, we will call the proper federal agency and let them handle it.”
The interview later appeared to be repurposed by the tabloid Daily Mail saying Comeaux had a “warning for migrants […] you’re not welcome here.”
“That message was to all [those with] felony warrants out there,” Comeaux said Thursday. “That’s who that message was to.”
Comeaux said DPD will assist federal partners when they ask for help.
“That stance has not changed, it’s been the same since I got here,” he said.
Comeaux’s comments Thursday echo what he said in an interview earlier this month with WFAA senior crime and justice reporter Rebecca Lopez.
“With the Dallas Police Department, we’re not running any programs on our own where we’re going out looking for illegal immigrants, that’s not what we’re doing,” Comeaux said at that time. “However, we will work shoulder to shoulder with all of our federal partners when they need our assistance. We’ll be there to help.”
But Comeaux has faced questions from the Dallas Community Police Oversight Board about his stance on immigration. The group sent him a letter last month asking for more information following Comeaux’s interview with WFAA.
“He provided a very terse short answer, which is his right to do,” said Brandon Friedman, one of the representatives on the board. “But we need a little more elaboration from him on that.”
The board will hold a special meeting Friday evening to discuss sending another letter to the chief ahead the board’s first formal meeting with him on Tuesday.
“We want to make sure that the Dallas Police Department is not just blinding following along if ICE is in fact not doing what they’re supposed to be doing,” Friedman said, saying he has concerns about reports of immigration enforcement agents “not treating people right.”
“I expect our police chief to make his own decisions, follow his own moral compass and ensure he is protecting residents of Dallas and not simply following the orders of the federal government,” Friedman said.
Comeaux said his officers will help federal agents as long as what they’re doing is legal.
Per the Dallas Police Department’s General Order, in effect since 2017, officers won’t “stop or contact any person for the sole purpose of determining immigration status” and “are permitted, but not required, to ask about the immigration status only of those persons who are lawfully detained or arrested.”