AUSTIN - The Texas Supreme Court has reversed a ruling blocking Attorney General Ken Paxton from digging into the Annunciation House, a Catholic charity he claims is facilitating illegal border crossings and concealing migrants from law enforcement.
Paxton announced he was seeking an injunction against Annunciation House last May after a failed request for documents that led to the charity seeking a restraining order against the AG.
“Any NGO (nongovernmental organization) facilitating the unlawful entry of illegal aliens into Texas is undermining the rule of law and potentially jeopardizing the safety and wellbeing of our citizens,” Paxton said in the announcement. “All NGOs who are complicit in Joe Biden’s illegal immigration catastrophe and think they are above the law should consider themselves on notice.”
An El Paso district court granted the charity’s request and later held that the Rules of Civil Procedure superseded the AG’s original records request, meaning that any production of records would now take place subject to discovery requests and rulings, court records state.
After Annunciation House moved for summary judgment, the trial court granted the motion and denied Paxton’s requests for an injunction and for leave to file a quo warranto action.
The trial court found that the records-request statute is facially unconstitutional under the First and Fourth Amendments and that the request made of the charity in particular constituted religious harassment.
In its May 30 opinion, the Supreme Court expressed that a “host of serious questions” are bound up in the dispute, such as can “harboring illegal aliens provide a valid basis for the attorney general to file a quo warranto action?”
“Ordinarily, before this Court addresses such significant issues, the parties would have developed a full record and litigated the disputed questions in the trial court and then the court of appeals, after which the disappointed side would file a petition for review,” the opinion states. “This case, however, comes to the Court as a direct appeal because, very early in the litigation, the trial court held that several Texas statutes are unconstitutional. We accordingly must address this dispute far earlier than we typically would.
“We conclude that the trial court erred in its constitutional holdings. We likewise conclude that the court’s related injunctions, which prevent the attorney general from even filing a quo warranto action, were premature at best. Our primary holding is that the attorney general has the constitutional authority to file his proposed quo warranto action, which simply allows the usual litigation process to unfold. It is too early for us, or for any court, to express a view about the merits of the underlying issues.”
Justices found that the trial court erred, reversing the judgment and vacating the injunction.
Annunciation House is represented by the Alexander Dubose and Jefferson law firm.
Case No. 24-0573
