(Reuters) -The attorney general of Texas on Tuesday sued a
Catholic nonprofit organization that provides housing and assistance to
migrants, accusing the group of "alien harboring, human smuggling, and
operating a stash house."
Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a written statement that
the legal action was intended to revoke the license of Annunciation House to
operate in Texas as a non-governmental organization or NGO.
"The chaos at the southern border has created an
environment where NGOs, funded with taxpayer money from the Biden
Administration, facilitate astonishing horrors, including human
smuggling," Paxton said.
"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," said
the Republican attorney general.
Annunciation House said that Paxton's goal in filing the
lawsuit after it denied him immediate access to its records was to use the
document dispute as an excuse to shut down the nonprofit.
"The attorney general's illegal, immoral, and anti-faith
position to shut down Annunciation House is unfounded," the group said in
a written statement. Paxton filed the lawsuit on Tuesday in El Paso County
District Court.
Dylan Corbett, executive director of the Hope Border
Institute, a similar organization, said he supported Annunciation House.
"The actions of the Texas Attorney General are intended
to intimidate and criminalize humanitarian aid workers and are an affront to
the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the commandment to love one's neighbor,"
Corbett said on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter.
Paxton said in the lawsuit that Annunciation House publicly
claimed to house some 300 migrants at a time who they knew were avoiding
detection by American Customs and Border Protection agents.
The attorney general said the nonprofit was engaging in human
smuggling by transporting migrants in vans and placing them in so-called stash
houses.
Texas is building a military base camp in the city of Eagle
Pass near the U.S.-Mexico border, part of a broader effort by the state's
Republican Governor, Greg Abbott, to deter illegal immigration.
(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Michael Perry and
Sonali Paul)