Catholic immigrant shelter battles Texas AG, who wants to shut it down

Texas' attorney generalwants to shut down a faith-based group that has sheltered migrants for decades, escalating conservatives’ targeting of Catholic organizations and amping up the state’s own immigration enforcement operation.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, has sued to revoke the license to operate of Annunciation House in the border city of El Paso, after a judge sided with the nonprofit and allowed it 14 days to respond to a demand for records by Paxton. Paxton's office requested among other things logs identifying people to whom the organization has provided services.

Paxton's office said in a statementTuesday that public records it has reviewed suggest the organization has been helping undocumented people enter the country, among other things.

But Jerome Wesevich, the Texas RioGrande Legal Aid attorney representing Annunciation House, said Paxton's lawsuit to shut down Annunciation House and its shelters has never been about obtaining documents.

"What they wanted was a pretext to shut us down," Wesevich told NBC News.

A new Texas law that enhances penalties for the smuggling of people across the border went into effect on Feb. 6 "and they were at our door Feb. 7," Wesevich said. "That smells."

The new law is one of several Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed last year. It drives up minimum penalties for human smuggling or operating a stash house.

Annunciation House, which operates several shelters in El Paso and across the border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, first filed suit when the attorney general’s office issued an administrative subpoena. The group asked for 30 days to respond, according to Wesevich, but Paxton's office said it must respond that day or face shutdown.

Wesevich said there was no