Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has dropped a suit seeking to shut down Annunciation House after demanding two years ago to examine the records of the nonprofit network of migrant shelters in El Paso, including information about the people it served.
“It’s very gratifying that this has now ended. It’s over,” Ruben Garcia, founder and executive director of Annunciation House, told El Paso Matters. “What I would want next is for the state Legislature to say, ‘We have to find a way to prevent this from happening.’”
The Attorney General’s Office on Monday filed a notice of nonsuit with prejudice, meaning the office will never again file a lawsuit with similar allegations against the organization in the future. Paxton’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The move comes as Paxton, a Republican who unsuccessfully sought a U.S. Senate seat in the Nov. 3 midterm election, prepares to leave the AG’s Office in mid-January. Attorney General-elect Nathan Johnson, a Democrat who now serves in the Senate, has said he intends to review cases brought by Paxton.
The AG’s Office first delivered a demand letter to examine Annunciation House records on Feb. 7, 2024. The next day, the organization sued Paxton challenging the demand. Within days, Paxon sought to revoke the Annunciation House’s nonprofit registration in Texas and shut down its operation, alleging harboring, human smuggling and stash-house activity.
Garcia vehemently denied the claims, stating the organization serves migrants processed and released by U.S. immigration authorities.
The case wound its way through the courts, with an El Paso district judge blocking the AG’s attempt, and Paxton appealing to the Texas Supreme Court. In May 2025, the Texas Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s decision and later denied Annunciation House’s request for a rehearing.
Annunciation House was among more than a handful of organizations that Paxton targeted using consumer protection laws.
“This whole process of suing organizations like Annunciation House puts a blanket, a wet blanket, over the work of all of these organizations and many others that were not sued but feared they might be,” Garcia said. “It makes everybody go about their daily work looking over their shoulder, asking themselves, ‘Are they going to come after me?’”
The case was set to go to court again in March, with a hearing in an El Paso district court. Garcia noted that he was scheduled to be deposed later this week as the case had picked up pace before the midterms.
U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, said Paxton dropping the lawsuit was “long overdue good news.”
“This is what happens when the people use our collective voice at the ballot box,” she said in a statement to El Paso Matters. “Under Democratic leadership, our state will be redirecting its time, energy, and resources to issues that matter instead of the partisan bullying we’d grown accustomed to under Republicans.”
Garcia agreed, saying that he’s confident dropping the suit is a result of the midterm elections that saw Democrats sweep key seats across Texas.
“We’re tremendously grateful that that it it gives back a certain level of of voice to organizations and in their ability to more freely speak out on the issues that are affecting refugees in terrible, terrible ways,” he said.
Annunciation House was established in February 1978 by Garcia and four other young adults who began meeting in 1976 searching for ways to serve El Paso’s poor and homeless, particularly undocumented immigrants who were turned away from other shelters.
The organization has served more than a half a million people, and in 2023 was the focal organization providing shelter to thousands of migrants who arrived in El Paso during a major influx.
Editor’s note: 5:45 p.m. Nov. 9: This story has been updated with additional details and comments.
The post After nearly 3 years, AG Ken Paxton drops fight to shut down El Paso’s Annunciation House appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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