Texas state district court judge Francisco Dominguez of El Paso Thursday blocked efforts by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to investigate a roughly fifty year old Catholic Church and donation-funded network migrant aid center called Annunication House, stating he believes “there is a real and credible concern that the attempt to prevent Annunciation House from conducting business in Texas was predetermined.”
Judge Dominguez says Attorney General Ken Paxton may want to shut down Annunciation House for political reasons.
Annunication House helps migrants released into America, pending investigation and review, by U.S. Border Patrol or ICE, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The help includes shelter, food, legal and language advice help for paperwork the U.S. federal government requires from legally released migrants.
In court documents, the attorney general’s office says the network of migrant aid shelters along the Texas border appears “to be engaged in the business of human smuggling”, in operation of an “illegal stash house”. Paxton claims Annunication House encourages immigrants to enter the United States illegally, by providing education on legal services.
The Texas Office of Attorney General sent three attorneys to Annunication House in February, giving the shelter director one day to turn over a large amount of documents. Among the documents demanded; names of migrants helped, anything given to migrants to help them, copies of a filed application for a federal grant, and more, including medical records. During a court hearing, the Texas prosecuting attorney Ryan Baasch told Dominguez that Governor Greg Abbott asked for investigation into nonprofits providing assistance to migrants.
Regarding the one day deadline for the charity to provide the documents to the state of Texas, Dominguez told the state prosecutor “This is the part where you’re starting to offend my intelligence….you did not offer to negotiate. You did not offer to act in good faith.” Dominguez added, “there was no attempt whatsoever to negotiate by the attorney general, which is what gives the court raise for concern that there are ulterior political motives here taking place that go outside of what the law requires, go outside of what the law demands”.
Since early 2021, the state of Texas has spent more than ten billion dollars as part of Governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star. OLS is a name given to many efforts Texas is taking to deter migrants from crossing from Mexico into Texas. National Guard members and Department of Public safety troopers are stationed at several areas along the Rio Grande border. Various deterrents have been employed, including placement of large, rolling balls preventing mounting and or climbing over by migrants, and lining the northern, Texas side of the Rio Grande with razor wire.
Recently, the “Texas Military” fenced in and took over control of a city park, Shelby Park, in the small border town of Eagle Pass, Texas, claiming migrants were using the location to cross illegally into Texas. The U.S. Border Patrol used the park as a stationing area to process migrants that made it across the river into U.S. territory. Earlier this year, Border Patrol agents were prevented from accessing the park to launch a search and rescue for migrants reported drowning in the Rio Grande. Later, the bodies of a female migrant and two young children were found drowned in the river. Political arguments resulted concerning what happened and how it happened.
Annunication House runs several shelters in the El Paso area. It’s helped hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants over the past fifty years with food, housing, and language related information to help them claim asylum in the U.S., if that is their wish.
Annunication House asked the judge to determine if it was necessary to release the requested documents to the state. Dominguez ruled the attorney general’s office will go through the Texas court system should it continue to choose to investigate the Catholic Church supported nonprofit agency.
About fifty years ago, Annunciation House began helping the poorest of the poor in the El Paso area, widening and narrowing it’s help according to incoming needs through church-supported and/or church-donation supported refugee and or migrant aid centers for those who have arrived with nothing. It is one of several church-related organizations working to aid migrants.
