Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is seeking to shut down Annunciation House, an El Paso Catholic nonprofit organization that has provided shelter and other services to migrants and immigrants for decades.

“The chaos at the southern border has created an environment where (nongovernmental organizations), funded with taxpayer money from the Biden administration, facilitate astonishing horrors including human smuggling,” Paxton said in a statement Tuesday. “While the federal government perpetuates the lawlessness destroying this country, my office works day in and day out to hold these organizations responsible for worsening illegal immigration.”

Ruben Garcia, the founder and director of Annunciation House, denounced the attorney general’s action in a statement Tuesday night.

“The attorney general’s illegal, immoral and anti-faith position to shut down Annunciation
House is unfounded,” Garcia said.

He had raised concerns last year that Texas’ crackdown on immigration could imperil the work of church-based groups on immigration.

“The church is at risk because the volunteers are asking themselves, ‘If I feed someone who’s unprocessed, if I give someone a blanket who’s unprocessed, if I help them get off the street, am I liable to be prosecuted for that?’” Garcia told a bipartisan delegation of U.S. senators visiting El Paso in January 2023. “Shame on us, that on this day, this is even being brought up in the United States.”

On Tuesday, Garcia said his organization provides a vital service, and warned that other organizations could be at risk of actions by Paxton.

“Annunciation House has kept hundreds of thousands of refugees coming through our city off the streets and given them food. The work helps serve our local businesses, our city, and immigration officials to keep people off the streets and give them a shelter while they come through our community,” he said. “If the work that Annunciation House conducts is illegal, so too is the work of our local hospitals, schools, and food banks.”

This month’s actions mark the latest escalation by Texas state officials to assert control over immigration issues along the U.S.-Mexico border.

In court filings, the Texas Attorney General’s Office says Annunciation House also provides assistance to people who enter the country and evade Border Patrol officials, citing a 2023 El Paso Matters article about the nonprofit’s efforts to help migrants apply for asylum.

The state accuses Annunciation House of engaging in “human smuggling” because it provides transportation to migrants.

According to court records, investigators with the Attorney General’s Office went to Annunciation House’s South El Paso office on Feb. 7 and served the agency with a request to examine records related to its operations. 

Annunciation House’s received a temporary restraining order the next day from 205th District Court Judge Francisco Dominguez of El Paso that blocked the attorney general from enforcing the order for records.

“Annunciation House wishes to provide you the documents to which you are entitled under law. This will require study and work on our part, and unfortunately litigation as well because it is impossible to comply with your deadline, and we remain concerned about the legality of certain aspects of your request,” Jerome Wesevich, an attorney for Annunciation House, said in a Feb. 8 email to the Attorney General’s Office.

Paxton’s office on Tuesday filed a counter-claim against Annunciation House, seeking to overturn the temporary restraining order and to strip the nonprofit of its right to do business in Texas. The attorney general alleges Annunciation House is violating state law by refusing to turn over the requested records, and should be shut down.

The records sought by Paxton’s office include “documents sufficient to show all services that you provide to aliens, whether in the United States legally or illegally,” and “all documents provided to individual aliens as part of your intake process.”

Dominguez has scheduled a hearing for 9 a.m. March 7 on Annunciation House’s request for a temporary injunction, which is a stronger step than the temporary restraining order he issued earlier this month. The hearing had earlier been set for Feb. 22 but was rescheduled.

Garcia, a protege of the Catholic nun St. Mother Teresa, founded Annunciation House in 1978. He has been one of the nation’s foremost champions of treating migrants with dignity.

Annunciation House played a key role in reuniting migrant parents and children who were separated by the Trump administration in 2018.

8:55 p.m. Feb. 20: This story has been updated with comments from Ruben Garcia.

9:11 a.m. Feb. 22: This story has been updated with a new hearing date in Annunciation House’s request for an injunction.