CV NEWS FEED // On July 24, District Court Judge Bobby Flores, in Hidalgo County, Texas, ruled that the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, cannot depose the leader of a migrant shelter in the city of McAllen that Catholic Charities operates.
According to The Texas Tribune, the attorney general’s office had filed a petition in June to depose Catholic Charities, claiming that the organization could be illegally harboring migrants or promoting their unlawful entry or stay in the country. Catholic Charities denied any wrongdoing and said that the attorney general’s office had not supplied any evidence to the contrary.
Sister Norma Pimentel of the Missionaries of Jesus, Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley’s executive director, affirmed the organization’s commitment to legal compliance while continuing its mission. Judge Flores’s decision prevents Sister Pimentel from being compelled to testify about the shelter’s operations.
The Texas Tribune reports that the attorney general’s office initially requested documents from Catholic Charities in April. Catholic Charities complied and provided over 100 pages of documents related to rules and procedures for admitting migrants, staff, federal funding, and correspondence with federal and local law enforcement.
Additionally, Sister Pimentel submitted a sworn statement addressing the organization’s interactions with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Despite these submissions, the attorney general’s office reportedly claimed the documents and Sister Pimentel’s statement did not provide sufficient insight into the organization’s operations, labeling the statement as “non-responsive and evasive.”
Attorneys for Catholic Charities argued that the attorney general’s office had not shown any potential benefit to deposing its executive director, stating that “the petition represents a fishing expedition into a pond where no one has even seen a fish.”
The Texas Tribune report notes that migrants crossing the border in the Rio Grande Valley and allowed to remain in the country while awaiting an asylum hearing are typically delivered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to the Catholic Charities respite center in McAllen.
This ruling follows a similar decision earlier this month in El Paso, where a judge denied the attorney general’s efforts to shut down a migrant shelter network on accusations of violating state laws against human smuggling and operating a stash house. The judge ruled the state law was preempted by federal law, which allows anyone entering the country the right to request asylum.
An attorney for Catholic Charities, William Powell, expressed hope that the July 24 ruling would end the attorney general’s investigation. “We would hope that at this point they’ve realized that Catholic Charities complies with the law in all the work they do,” Powell said.
