Judge issues ruling protecting an El Paso migrant shelter that Texas sought to close
McALLEN – A Texas judge ruled against the state attorney general on Tuesday in his effort to shut down a migrant shelter in El Paso that he claimed encourages illegal migration.
Judge Francisco X. Dominguez in El Paso ruled that Attorney General Ken Paxton's attempts to enforce a subpoena for records of migrants served at the Annunciation House violated the constitutional rights of the shelter. His ruling prevents Paxton from seeking the records and protects the shelter from what Dominguez called "harassment and overreaching" by Paxton's office.
Texas is expected to appeal.
Dominguez wrote that Paxton did not identify what laws he believed were being violated in seeking the documents.
"The record before this Court makes clear that the Texas Attorney General's use of the request to examine documents from Annunciation House was a pretext to justify its harassment of Annunciation House employees and the persons seeking refuge," he wrote.
State officials visited Annunciation House in early February demanding immediate access to records — including medical and immigration documents — of migrants who had received services at the shelter since 2022. Officials from Annunciation House, which oversees a network of shelters, said they were willing to comply but needed time to determine what they could legally share without violating their client's constitutional rights.
Paxton alleged that by providing shelter to migrants regardless of their legal status, Annunciation House was facilitating illegal immigration, human smuggling, and operating a stash house.
"The chaos at the southern border has created an environment where [a nongovernmental organization], funded with taxpayer money from the Biden Administration, facilitate astonishing horrors including human smuggling," Paxton said in February. "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."
Investigators who sought to access records the day after requesting entry were not allowed inside the shelter. Jerry Wesevich, the attorney representing Annunciation House, said that corporations under the Constitution's Fourth Amendment are protected from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.
"In December, when we were having about 3,000 asylum seekers coming through, we couldn't have made it without Annunciation House, without the NGOS," said Oscar Leeser, the mayor of El Paso.