Paxton Drops Suit Seeking to Shut Down El Paso's Annunciation House Migrant Shelters
The AG's office dropped its nearly three-year case against Annunciation House, El Paso Matters reported, filing a nonsuit with prejudice. The 2024 allegations were never tried to a verdict.
Attorney General Ken Paxton's office has dropped its nearly three-year fight to shut down Annunciation House, the El Paso migrant-shelter network, El Paso Matters reported Monday night. The Texas Tribune carried the same account.
The office filed a notice of nonsuit with prejudice, El Paso Matters reported — language the Tribune also carried — meaning, as those outlets described it, the office cannot later bring a lawsuit with similar allegations against the organization. Paxton's office did not immediately comment. Dock Line has not seen Monday's court paper itself; the "with prejudice" description comes from that reporting, not from an independent reading of the filing.
The case was heading back to an El Paso district court. A hearing had been set for March, and Annunciation House founder Ruben Garcia said he was scheduled to be deposed this week. Instead, the state walked away as Paxton prepares to leave office in mid-January after losing his U.S. Senate race.
What the state alleged
The dispute began Feb. 7, 2024, when the attorney general's office delivered a demand to examine Annunciation House records, El Paso Matters reported. The nonprofit sued the next day. Within days, Paxton sought to revoke its Texas nonprofit registration and close it down.
In a February 2024 news release and in court papers filed in El Paso County (Cause No. 2024DCV0616, 205th District Court), the office alleged that public records strongly suggested Annunciation House was facilitating illegal entry, harboring, human smuggling and stash-house activity. The filing asked the court to revoke the organization's authority to do business in Texas, enjoin its operations and appoint a receiver to liquidate its assets.
"The chaos at the southern border has created an environment where NGOs, funded with taxpayer money from the Biden Administration, facilitate astonishing horrors including human smuggling," Paxton said in that 2024 release. Those were allegations. They were never tried to a verdict.
What Annunciation House says
Garcia has denied the claims, telling El Paso Matters that the organization serves migrants already processed and released by U.S. immigration authorities. After the nonsuit, he said, "It's very gratifying that this has now ended. It's over." He also said he wants the Legislature "to find a way to prevent this from happening" again.
The case went to the Texas Supreme Court after an El Paso judge blocked the attorney general. In May 2025, the high court reversed the lower court and later denied a rehearing, El Paso Matters reported, sending the fight back toward trial.
U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, called the drop "long overdue good news" and "what happens when the people use our collective voice at the ballot box." Garcia said he, too, believes the midterm results explain the timing.
A dismissal is not a finding
A nonsuit with prejudice ends this case. It does not prove the state's accusations, and it does not prove they were false. It means Texans will not get a public airing of the evidence in this lawsuit. That is a loss for anyone who wanted the facts tested in court, whichever side they were on.
Attorney General-elect Nathan Johnson has said he will review cases Paxton brought. We have already reported, in Nathan Johnson Will Stop Suing Out-of-State Abortion Pill Doctors. Here Is What Democrats Can and Cannot Change, that Johnson intends to change course on some abortion litigation. Reviewing a file is not the same as blessing every defendant Paxton sued, or burying every claim that still has evidence behind it.
Law and mercy are not enemies
Scripture commands care for the stranger (Leviticus 19:34) and also requires rulers to punish evildoers (Romans 13:4). A ministry that feeds and shelters people lawfully released by federal officers is not the same thing as a smuggling operation. The way to tell the difference is evidence, not a press release and not a campaign speech.
If Annunciation House broke the law, the state should have proved it. If it did not, the state should not have tried to dissolve a nonprofit on allegations that never reached a jury. Dropping the case on the way out of office, without an explanation from Paxton's office, leaves that question hanging. Texans should ask the incoming attorney general what, if anything, the file actually showed — and they should not confuse a partisan celebration with a court judgment that was never entered.
