The Texas attorney general is suing a network of church-related ministries to migrants and refugees, after one of them, Annunciation House in El Paso, Texas, refused to surrender records about the people it serves.
Attorney General Ken Paxton sought records that included information that would identify clients of Annunciation House’s ministry, any referrals the non-profit had made to legal services as well as any applications for federal funding.
The lawsuit seeks to revoke the ministries’ tax-exempt status, which would effectively force them to close.
“The Office of the Attorney General reviewed significant public record information strongly suggesting Annunciation House is engaged in legal violations such as facilitating illegal entry to the United States, alien harbouring, human smuggling, and operating a stash house,” the attorney general’s office said in a statement on 20 February.
Annunciation House issued its own statement, saying that the attorney general “has stated that it considers it a crime for a Catholic organisation to provide shelter to refugees”. It called the lawsuit “illegal, immoral, and anti-faith”.
Annunciation House was founded in 1976 by Ruben Garcia after a visit from Mother Teresa of Kolkata. The future saint suggested naming the ministry for the Annunciation.
The lawsuit tallies with the Republican Party’s nationwide effort, led by former President Donald Trump, to make the influx of undocumented refugees a political issue – even while Trump has urged Congress not to pass bipartisan legislation that sought to address the migration problem.
The lawsuit pits two traditionally conservative constituencies against each other: religious liberty groups against anti-immigration advocates. Trump has previously accused the Biden administration of “persecuting” Catholics, but has so far not commented on the Texas lawsuit.
Catholic leaders rushed to defend the work of Annunciation House. “Our church, our city and our country owe Annunciation House a deep debt of gratitude,” said Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso.
“I know the guests at Annunciation House, those trapped on the other side of the border and those who have died trying to cross it,” he added.
Seitz accused to state of Texas of perpetrating “an escalating campaign of intimidation, fear and dehumanisation”.
In Mexico, the Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Human Mobility issued a statement of “solidarity and admiration” for Annunciation House, saying it was a “charitable and humanitarian organisation” and that the attorney general ignored this part of its work.
The statement, signed by Bishop José Guadalupe Torres Campos of Ciudad Juárez, the diocese across the border from El Paso, cites Matthew 25:35: “Come, my Father has given you his blessing. Receive the kingdom God has prepared for you since the world was made. I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was alone and away from home, and you received me into your house.”
It said criminalising Annunciation House would set a dangerous precedent for other charitable ministries, and called on Texas “to refrain from continuing to use migrants for political purposes, encouraging discrimination and xenophobia”.
The statement urged Annunciation House “not to spare your efforts, even under threat or intimidation, to welcome Christ in our migrant brothers”.
“Let us be certain that God walks with his people and may the Virgin of Guadalupe help us to tear down the human borders of hate, discrimination and xenophobia, and to build a culture where no one feels like an outsider.”
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