By
Isabel VincentPublished Nov. 3, 2024, 7:00 a.m. ET
The Texas Attorney General is demanding accountability from Annunciation House, a Catholic charity it says facilitates the illegal entry of migrants into the US.
James Breeden for NY Post
A charity run shelter in El Paso, Texas stands accused of “planning and facilitating” illegal migrants to
cross over the border from Mexico into the US, according to court documents.
The accusation of brazen illegality is part of a suit filed by the state Attorney General Ken Paxton against Annunciation House, a Catholic group who run a handful of shelters providing temporary housing to migrants who have illegally crossed into the US.Paxton launched an investigation earlier this year into the charity, demanding the immediate release of documentation about its migrant clients, which it has refused to do.
“Annunciation House publicly depicts itself as a humble organization dedicated to ‘simply liv[ing] the Good News of the Gospel’ and providing ‘compassion and freedom’ to ‘outcast[s] or alien[s],'” papers filed in year in El Paso County Court say, adding: “The actual operations of Annunciation House are quite different.
Migrants in El Paso head to a local church shelter after arriving El Paso from Colombia and Venezuela in March.
James Breeden/NY Post
“Annunciation House staff … made multiple admissions that they had assisted migrants in the past in the United States who had not surrendered to Border Patrol, had assisted persons in Mexico in crossing over to the United States in the past, and they intended to continue these activities in the future.
The shelters are run by Ruben Garcia, a Catholic activist who has been likened to a living saint for helping migrants in El Paso for nearly 50 years.
But Paxton alleges he his organization is involved in human smuggling and further accuses the group of “boasting” that it helps “migrants who avoided Border Patrol when crossing the Rio Grande, out of fear that agents would send them back to Mexico.”
“Annunciation House contracts with a local company once or twice a week to transport migrants in passenger vans in groups of approximately 15,” court papers say.
