When Gov. Greg Abbott sent a public letter last week reprimanding Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez for softening her approach to detaining undocumented immigrants booked into her jails, saying it posed a "serious danger to Texans" and may require state action, it confused many immigrant rights activists.

Not because the governor's tone surprised them — it didn't — but because Valdez, though a Democrat, was hardly a poster child for lenient enforcement of federal immigration law. Pro-immigrant groups have for years fought what they view as Valdez's hardline policies toward the undocumented immigrants arrested in Dallas County.

"It's very disappointing that she's a Latina ... that she comes from an immigrant background, and she refuses to stand with the community," said Carolina Canizales, the San Antonio-based deportation defense director of United We Dream, a national immigrant rights organization. "For us, she still has a lot of work to do."