Texas moves to shut down charity that houses illegal immigrants over smuggling allegations

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked a state judge Tuesday to shut down a charity that houses illegal immigrants, accusing it of complicity in smuggling by shielding migrants from detection, sheltering them and helping them disperse deeper into the U.S.

Mr. Paxton, a Republican, said El Paso-based Annunciation House Inc., is violating many state laws that criminalize smuggling.

He also said the organization is refusing to allow his investigators to inspect its operations, which puts it in violation of state law and makes it liable to being shut down.

“As a matter of law, Annunciation House’s right to do business in Texas has been forfeited,” the attorney general wrote.

The case goes to the heart of one of the facets of the current migration surge, where the Biden administration is relying heavily on nongovernmental organizations to help the illegal immigrants who are flooding into the U.S. in unprecedented numbers.

Indeed, the administration has paid the organizations hundreds of millions of dollars to offer shelter, provide coronavirus testing and help migrants catch buses and planes to destinations deeper in the country.

Mr. Paxton says the organizations go beyond that, however, by coaching migrants to file bogus asylum applications and by offering shelter and transportation to illegal immigrants who were never apprehended by the Border Patrol and are here without even the imprimatur of a catch-and-release.

The Washington Times has reached out to Annunciation House for comment.

Mr. Paxton said his agents have been watching Annunciation House in recent weeks and detected “unusually covert” operations designed to hide what’s really going on.

He then sent investigators to look at the organization’s books, which he said is the attorney general’s right under state law. Annunciation House then sought a temporary restraining order to keep Mr. Paxton out.

His new allegations were filed as a counterclaim to that.