Texas AG sues a nonprofit that helps migrants, accusing it of 'alien harboring.'

Source: CNN

Published 9:19 AM EST, Tue February 27, 2024


CNN — Texas’ Republican attorney general is suing a Catholic nonprofit that assists migrants, claiming his office has information “strongly suggesting” the group has engaged in “alien harboring, human smuggling, and operating a stash house,” according to a news release.

Ken Paxton is now trying to revoke the registration of Annunciation House in El Paso, according to a court filing in the district court of El Paso. Paxton’s maneuver came in response to a lawsuit filed by Annunciation House, which obtained a temporary restraining order against the state’s wide-ranging demand to disclose the organization’s records “immediately.”

According to the nonprofit, a representative from the attorney general’s office came to Annunciation House on February 7, “stating the organization had one day to turn over a broad swath of records to the Attorney General without an explanation,” the group said in a statement last week. “Annunciation House asked a Court to decide what documents the law permits the Attorney General to access,” the nonprofit said. “There is nothing illegal about asking a Court to decide a person’s rights.”

Now, the Office of the Attorney General says it is seeking the revocation of the nonprofit’s registration “on the grounds that it has violated the law and failed to permit OAG to inspect, examine and make copies of Annunciation House’s records in response to a valid Request to Examine,” according to a court filing. The attorney general’s lawsuit against the migrant shelter is viewed as an escalation in the ongoing feud between Texas’ Republican political leaders and the federal government over how to handle the migrant crisis.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/27/us/ken-paxton-migrants-nonprofit-texas/index.html