Texas AG Ken Paxton sues county over program that helps migrants obtain lawyers

Texas GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Harris County — home to Houston — for using county funds for programs that help migrants facing deportation gain access to legal assistance.

Harris County created the Immigrant Legal Services Fund program in 2020, sending money to five organizations that help migrants facing deportation obtain lawyers.

Last month, the county allocated an additional $1.3 million to support the program.

Paxton said in a statement that the program is “bad and nasty,” as well as unconstitutional.

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Harris County for using county funds for programs that help migrants facing deportation access lawyers. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)

“We must stop the left-wing radicals who are stealing from Texans to prevent illegal immigrants from being deported by the Trump administration,” Paxton said. “Beyond being blatantly unconstitutional, it is evil and wicked. Millions and millions of illegal immigrants invaded America under the last administration, and they must be sent back to where they came from.”

This is one of several lawsuits Paxton has recently filed against organizations that support migrants.

Harris County District Attorney Christian Menefee, a Democrat, rebuked Paxton’s latest lawsuit, saying the program is “perfectly legal” and that his office would fight back in court against the lawsuit.

“This trial is a cheap political stunt,” he said in a statement. “At a time when the president has deployed ICE agents to terrorize immigrant neighborhoods, deport American citizens, and trample the law, it is shameful that state Republican officials are joining in instead of standing up for Texans.”

The Harris County Jail leads the nation in ICE detainees. (Getty Images)

The Harris County Jail leads the nation in ICE detainees, according to the Texas Tribune, as federal and state officials seek to continue implementing President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

Before the county launched the Immigrant Legal Services Fund in 2020, it was the largest county in the country without a program to help immigrants access legal counsel, the Texas Tribune noted. The county adopted the program following a party-line vote.

“When you have a family present at an eviction hearing and they don’t have an attorney, they’re evicted at a much higher rate, about 90 percent of the time, compared to about 5 percent of the time when they have an attorney,” County Judge Lina Hidalgo, who proposed the program, said at the time, according to the Houston Chronicle.

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Harris County District Attorney Christian Menefee called the trial a “cheap political stunt.” (Getty Images)

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In the lawsuit, Paxton claims the programs “serve no public purpose and are instead unconstitutional grants of public funds to private entities to subsidize individual defenses against eviction.” He asked the court to stop the county from distributing funds to these organizations and to prohibit it from sending money to these groups in the future.

Last month, after the vote to allocate money for the program, Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis said the funding was needed because of a surge in raids targeting migrants, according to the Houston Chronicle.

“Having access to legal representation not only improves case outcomes, but also helps keep families together,” he said in a statement. “In a country as diverse as ours, local authorities must step up to ensure safety, justice and the people they serve. »