Abbott Criticizes Paxton for Rushing Harris County Immigrant Legal Aid Lawsuit

Gov. Greg Abbott filed a brief with the Texas Supreme Court last week backing Attorney General Ken Paxton's lawsuit against Harris County's immigrant legal aid fund while openly questioning whether Paxton's rushed appeal timeline was driven by his Senate primary campaign against incumbent John Cornyn.

Harris County has operated the immigration legal fund for five years. Paxton filed his lawsuit against it late last year, lost at the district court level, then appealed to the all-Republican 15th Court of Appeals, where he demanded a ruling within 15 days. That court ruled against him, finding he had not produced proof that "despite several years in operation, the program has resulted in any actual harm to residents of Harris County or the state." Paxton then carried the case to the Texas Supreme Court.

Abbott filed an amicus brief supporting Paxton's underlying legal position but laying the 15th Court loss squarely at Paxton's feet. "This emergency — whether artificial or sincere — predictably compressed review before the Fifteenth Court," Abbott's lawyers wrote. "Any shortcomings in the lower court's decision here can easily be attributed to the challenges posed by expedited review."

The brief's sharpest passage speculated publicly about why Paxton would demand such a compressed timeline. "Perhaps the Attorney General only recently learned of this program; perhaps the office's attention was focused elsewhere; perhaps some other factor dictated a desire for a ruling before a particular date," Abbott's lawyers wrote. "The Governor will not speculate." Paxton's expedited deadline to the 15th Court fell well ahead of the March 3 GOP Senate primary, in which he pulled a close second against Cornyn.

Abbott spokesman Andrew Mahaleris framed the governor's brief in less ambiguous terms, saying Abbott filed it "to put a stop to this illegal spending and ensure taxpayer dollars serve Texans — not subsidize legal challenges to immigration law." The attorney general's office did not respond to a request for comment.

The Harris County lawsuit is part of a broader litigation campaign Paxton has waged against organizations that aid migrants. He sued El Paso shelter Annunciation House, alleging it operated a stash house and aided human smuggling; a judge denied those arguments. He sought to depose leaders from Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley over a potential human smuggling lawsuit; a court struck that down as well. More recently, Paxton sued an organization referred to as FIEL, alleging it engaged in "electioneering" by calling former President Donald Trump "the son of the devil" in Spanish and "obsessively campaigns against Texas legislation." Harris County District Judge Ravi K. Sandill heard arguments in that case and expressed skepticism that the state's request to "annihilate" the organization was too extreme, but had not yet issued a ruling as of Monday.

David Donatti, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Texas, said the pattern is deliberate. "The attorney general's latest attack on an immigrants' rights organization follows a familiar formula of loudly publicized harassment and targeted misinformation to create fear and confusion," Donatti said, adding that he expects the effort against Harris County's fund to fail in the courts as similar cases have.

The case now sits before the Texas Supreme Court, with Abbott's brief urging the justices to give the legal questions fuller consideration than the expedited 15th Court process allowed.