Editorial: Texas’ AG needs to stop wasting taxpayers’ money pestering Catholic Charities

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton continues to devote much of his attention, and taxpayers’ money, trying to shut down religious organizations that provide services to legal immigrants, including Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley.

Surely he has better ways to spend his time — and our money.

Paxton, who has declared war on such service agencies in the Valley, El Paso and elsewhere, has filed a writ of mandamus, asking that Catholic Charities’ executive director, Sister Norma Pimentel, be forced to submit to interrogation by the Attorney General’s Office to determine if the agency is promoting or facilitating illegal immigration or human trafficking.

Paxton subpoenaed Pimentel to appear for questioning earlier this year, but state District Judge J.R. “Bobby” Flores in July denied the subpoena. The new writ was filed with the 13th Court of Appeals but the Texas Supreme Court moved it to a new, recently empaneled court.

The attorney general certainly is well versed in playing the subpoena game. He himself has fought and dodged subpoenas in various cases against him for alleged securities fraud, bribery and corruption, as well as his impeachment by the state legislature.

His continued attacks seem an effort by Paxton, who long ago hitched his political wagon to the Donald Trump train, to keep shining a negative light on the issue of immigration, which is the GOP’s primary Trump card for the upcoming election.

Catholic Charities has provided documentation regarding its operations, which the agency says shows it receives immigrants and helps them after they have been processed by immigration officials. Under federal law, immigrants have legal status while their cases are under review.

In his 20-page petition, Paxton suggests his intent is to pull Catholic Charities’ charter, which would force it to cease all operations, not just its work with immigrants. The Respite Center that is his primary target helps many people who need it, not only migrants, and the agency provides other community services as sanctioned by the Catholic Diocese of Brownsville.

Its work has drawn international acclaim, including special praise from Pope Francis.

Clearly, Paxton is on a “fishing expedition,” as Catholic Charities stated in its response to the original subpoena; it’s looking for something that might or might not exist. That’s not how our legal system works. Investigations are undertaken only when evidence suggests that a crime might have been committed — prosecutors don’t launch such probes without evidence just because they have biases against the kinds of people an agency is serving.

Heck, if he wants to help Trump, he could even investigate whether the current wave of immigrants has affected our pet population along the border — a prospect no less reasonable than tormenting religious and charitable organizations.

The Texas Attorney General’s Office has many responsibilities to serve all the state’s residents. Paxton needs to apply more of his attention to those responsibilities, instead of continuing to pester religious organizations with no evidence that they have done anything wrong.