A San Antonio district Judge Mary Lou rejects Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s lawsuit against Bexar County, which sought to shut down a program that uses county funds helping illegal immigrants living in the US illegally access legal support.
Judge Mary Lou Alvarez ruled the state did not have the authority to file the lawsuit.
Launched in May 2024, the initiative provided $1 to two million dollars in nonprofits assisting people facing deportation allowing them to get immigration lawyers.
Paxton argued in the lawsuits against Bexar and Harris counties that the programs “serve no public purpose and instead constitute unconstitutional grants of public funds to private entities to subsidize individual deportation defenses.”
Another judge rejected a similar lawsuit Paxton’s office filed against Harris County last December. He has asked judges to stop officials in Harris and Bexar counties from disbursing funds to these organizations immediately, and bar them from doing so in the future.
In June, the 15th Court of Appeals ruled in his favor, blocking San Antonio from using the funds the city had allocated to potentially help people who needed to travel out of the state for abortions