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In 'Massive Escalation', Texas Sues to Shut Down Faith-Based Shelter for Helping Migrants
"If the work that Annunciation House conducts is illegal—so too is the work of our local hospitals, schools, and food banks," said the nonprofit organization.
Feb 21, 2024
A faith-based migrant aid organization that's operated in El Paso, Texas for nearly five decades said Wednesday that Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton ordered it to turn over documents about its work earlier this month—but that a lawsuit filed by Paxton has now made clear that his true goal is to shut down the group's network of shelters.
Annunciation House, which provides food and housing for refugees and undocumented immigrants, received an order from the Consumer Protection Division of Paxton's office on February 7, demanding that it turn over documents including legal service referrals, identifying information about asylum-seekers and migrants the group helped, and applications for federal funding. The organization was given one day to turn over the documents, and Paxton provided no explanation for the demand.
A request for an extension was denied by the state, and Annunciation House asked a court for a restraining order to grant it more time, as well as requesting that the court rule on which documents it had to hand over.
On Tuesday, Paxton announced he was suing Annunciation House, saying that given the group's "flagrant failure" to turn over the documents, his office "may terminate the business's right to operate in Texas."
"The [Office of the Attorney General] lawsuit seeks to revoke Annunciation House's authorization to do business in Texas and asks the court to appoint a receiver to liquidate their assets," said Paxton.
Annunciation House said that Paxton's statement made clear that his "real goal is not records but to shut down the organization," adding that the attorney general's office "has stated that it considers it a crime for a Catholic organization to provide shelter to refugees."
The group noted that "there is nothing illegal about asking a court to decide a person's rights," as it did following the February 7 request, and pointed out that public services across the country also provide aid to migrants and refugees.
"The attorney general's illegal, immoral and anti-faith position to shut down Annunciation House is unfounded," said the group. "Annunciation House has provided hospitality to hundreds of thousands of refugees for over 46 years... Annunciation House's response to the stranger is no different from that of the schools who enroll children of refugees, the clinics and hospitals who care for the needs of refugees, and the churches, synagogues, and mosques who welcome families to join in worship."
"If the work that Annunciation House conducts is illegal—so too is the work of our local hospitals, schools, and food banks," said the group.
Despite the organization's well-established record of helping to ensure refugees have temporary housing—work that it said "helps serve our local businesses, our city, and immigration officials" as well as Annunciation House's guests themselves, Paxton suggested the group's officials are "worsening illegal immigration" and facilitating human smuggling.
"The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) reviewed significant public record information strongly suggesting Annunciation House is engaged in legal violations such as facilitating illegal entry to the United States, alien harboring, human smuggling, and operating a stash house," Paxton claimed.
Jerome Wesevich, a lawyer with Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, which is representing Annunciation House, expressed shock at the "aggressive" tone of Paxton's rhetoric about the nonprofit.
"These are church ladies," Wesevich toldThe Texas Tribune of the volunteers who help run Annunciation House's shelters. "He's using documents as an excuse to shut down a religious organization he doesn't agree with."
Paxton's lawsuit and threat to shut down the group follow the Texas government's attempt to circumvent federal immigration law by erecting a razor wire fence to keep migrants from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. The state government has accused the Biden administration of perpetuating chaos and "lawlessness" at the border.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director of the American Immigration Council, called Paxton's lawsuit "a massive escalation in Texas' war on the federal government and on people of faith who feel called by God to support the stranger."
"There are people of faith around the country, who believe that they are putting the teachings of the Bible (or other religious books) practice by providing services to migrants," said Reichlin-Melnick. "Paxton's lawsuit should send a shiver down the spine of every faith-based nonprofit in the state."
Before shelters like Annunciation House began working in conjunction with the federal government in 2020, he added, the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement "would just dump migrants off at the bus station after they were released from custody. It was a chaotic mess."
"I was in El Paso in 2018 and at Annunciation House itself, and saw the Border Patrol dropping off migrants there to ensure they had a place to sleep for the night," he added. "If even [the Department of Homeland Security] under the Trump administration thought they were a valuable partner, that tells you how far off base Paxton is."
A hearing on both Annunciation House's request for clarification about what documents it needs to turn over and about Paxton's call for Texas to revoke the nonprofit's registration in the state is set to take place "at some point before March 7," Wesevich toldThe Texas Tribune.
"Within a badly broken immigration system, the humanitarian assistance provided by Annunciation House is one of the few things that works well," said former U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, a Democrat. "We in El Paso stand with the faith leaders and volunteers who lead this work and make us proud to call this border community our home."
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'A New Low': House Republicans Impeach Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas
"When you have no record of accomplishment to run on... this is what you do," said one Texas Democrat. "You put on a circus."
Feb 13, 2024
In what congressional Democrats blasted as yet another example of right-wingers in the U.S. House of Representatives creating "chaos" because they "simply can't govern," 214 Republicans voted Tuesday to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Three Republicans—Reps. Ken Buck (Colo.), Mike Gallagher (Wis.), and Tom McClintock (Calif.)—joined all 210 Democrats present in voting against impeaching Mayorkas for his handling of immigration at the southern U.S. border. Two members of each party did not vote.
Democratic President Joe Biden, who is seeking reelection in November, said in a lengthy statement after the vote that "history will not look kindly on House Republicans for their blatant act of unconstitutional partisanship that has targeted an honorable public servant in order to play petty political games."
Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) declared that "the 'do-nothing' Republican Party continues to waste time and resources that could be spent working for the American people on baseless, partisan attacks of Biden administration officials as they take up this sham impeachment vote of Secretary Mayorkas."
Jayapal noted that Tuesday's vote came after a failed attempt last week, when only House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) was absent and Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah) voted with the three Republicans and 212 Democrats who opposed impeaching Mayorkas.
"There is no question that the immigration system is broken—and what the American people want and deserve is an orderly and humane system that properly processes people and modernizes an outdated immigration system that has not been updated in over 30 years to reflect for the needs of our American economy, communities, and families," she said.
As The New York Timessummarized earlier this month:
The first article of impeachment accuses Mr. Mayorkas of refusing to enforce a law that mandates the detention of migrants who lack authorization to enter the United States, and of exceeding his authority to parole those people into the country, allowing them to live and work temporarily while they wait for their immigration claims to be processed.
The second article accuses the secretary of breaching the public trust by misrepresenting the state of the border to lawmakers and hampering the Republican-led investigation into his conduct.
Congressman Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) took to the House floor to condemn the impeachment as a "sham."
"When you have no record of accomplishment to run on... this is what you do," he said. "You put on a circus."
The only other Cabinet member to ever be impeached was William Belknap, who resigned as secretary of war just before the vote in 1876. According to Time, "The Senate went forward with the trial anyway, but fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict."
In 2024, the Senate is narrowly controlled by Democrats, and as The Associated Pressnoted Tuesday, "neither Democratic nor Republican senators have shown interest in the matter and it may be indefinitely shelved to a committee."
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement that Mayorkas' impeachment is an attempt by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) "to further appease" former President Donald Trump—the GOP presidential front-runner who has pressured congressional Republicans to abandon their battle for new border policies so he can campaign on limiting immigration.
"This sham impeachment effort is another embarrassment for House Republicans," said Schumer. "House Republicans failed to produce any evidence that Secretary Mayorkas has committed any crime. House Republicans failed to show he has violated the Constitution."
"House Republicans failed to present any evidence of anything resembling an impeachable offense," he added. "This is a new low for House Republicans."
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'Out of Control': DeSantis Deploys Florida State Guard to Texas
"Our State Guard is not the governor's personal army," said one former Florida lawmaker.
Feb 01, 2024
Flanked by several dozen uniformed members of Florida's State Guard and standing behind a podium displaying the words "Stop the Invasion," Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday announced a plan to send the civilian force and other resources to Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott's administration has been embroiled in a standoff with the White House over the U.S-Mexico border.
DeSantis said the State Guard, which he has grown over the last two years and transformed from a volunteer force meant to help citizens after hurricanes and other disasters into a militia with combat training, will deploy to Texas to help "fortify this border, help them strengthen the barricades, help them add barriers, help them add the wire that they need so that we can stop this invasion once and for all."
The governor also said he will send a battalion of the Florida National Guard to Texas.
Abbott in recent days has directed the Texas National Guard to continue putting up razor wire at the U.S.-Mexico border, following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed the Biden administration to remove the wire.
DeSantis said members of the State Guard would be sent to Texas soon under the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, a partnership between all state governments which allows Texas to give guardsmen deployed from Florida "the same arrest and law enforcement powers, right, and privileges while operating within the state limits of Texas as ordinarily afforded to law enforcement forces for the State of Texas."
The announcement came as 25 state chapters of the ACLU condemned Abbott's escalation and the support the Texas governor is getting from other Republican "enablers," including DeSantis.
"Our governors are embracing Gov. Abbott's xenophobic rhetoric and putting communities of color and immigrants in danger instead of working to improve quality of life in our states," said the ACLU chapters. "This is not standing up for our communities; it is standing against them."
The Florida governor, who ended his campaign to be the Republican presidential nominee last month, has previously sent the Florida National Guard and highway troopers to the Texas border, but the State Guard deployment marks the first time the force will be deployed outside the state.
Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said the planned deployment was "a massive waste of resources that distracts from delivering results for Floridians" and a case of DeSantis "screaming from the sidelines for attention."
"What happened to focusing on Florida?" said Fried. "As Ron limps back to his mansion as America's biggest loser, he's desperate to grab headlines and get 'wins' on the board... This latest attempt to insert himself in the national conversation is just another political stunt with a heavy price tag for taxpayers."
Fried called on DeSantis to focus on Florida's homeowners' insurance crisis, in which insurers are raising rates partially due to the intensifying climate risks they face.
"Instead of using this legislative session to address the property insurance crisis, Ron and his Republican supermajority are back to their old tricks," said Fried. "Floridians deserve better."
As The Miami Heraldreported Thursday, the Florida State Guard was originally a 200-member World War II-era force created to "pass out water bottles and other supplies after emergencies within Florida." Under DeSantis, the force has grown to 1,500 members who "wear camouflaged uniforms and are referred to as 'soldiers'" instead of deploying in "polo shirts and khakis."
DeSantis got approval from the legislature last year to deploy the State Guard for out-of-state emergencies and sent a select group to a combat training facility, as well as pouring $100 million into the force for new planes and boats.
The governor's announcement on Thursday was "exactly" what one lawmaker, state Rep. Dan Daley (D-97), was concerned DeSantis would ultimately use the State Guard for.
Members of the force are "being used as pawns in a national political game," said Daley.
"Our State Guard is not the governor's personal army and they've NEVER been sent outside Florida," added activist and former Florida lawmaker Carlos Guillermo Smith. "This is out of control."
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