The 15th Court of Appeals rejected Attorney General Ken Paxton’s attempt to shut down Harris County’s legal aid program for undocumented immigrants, saying he had not provided any proof that the program harmed residents.
Paxton sued Harris County in November for allocating taxpayer dollars to nonprofits that provide legal assistance to people navigating immigration proceedings. He claimed it was an improper gift of public funds to a private entity,
arguing the program was unconstitutional and “wicked.” He filed a similar lawsuit against Bexar County earlier this month.
Both lawsuits were rejected by district judges. Paxton appealed the Harris County ruling to the all-Republican 15th Court, which was created in 2023 to hear appeals of cases involving state government.
“Texas has long recognized that ‘procuring counsel’ for indigent persons in civil cases ‘is the performance of a needed public service,’” the judges wrote, citing previous rulings. “The State has not explained why providing counsel to indigents facing federal deportation is unconnected to these programs and concerns.”
Harris County started the Immigrant Legal Services Fund in 2020, initially allocating $2.5 million to helping people navigate immigration proceedings. Bexar County followed suit in May 2024, giving $1 million to two nonprofits that help people facing deportations get lawyers.
“When you have a family at a deportation hearing and they don’t have an attorney, they’re deported at a much higher rate, like 90 percent of the time, compared to like 5 percent of the time when they do have an attorney,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said at the time, according to the Houston Chronicle.
Harris County’s program sends county dollars to five organizations: BakerRipley, the Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project, Justice for All Immigrants, KIND, Inc. and the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Service.
It has helped 373 people over the last five years. Most closed cases have been resolved through removal or voluntary departure from the U.S., the court found.
The Harris County Jail leads the nation in ICE detainers — a request from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to hold a person for deportation — as federal and state immigration enforcement has kicked into high gear under President Donald Trump.
Home to San Antonio, Bexar County allocated more than $566,000 to its Immigration Legal Services program in mid-December. Paxton sued the county on Feb. 4 in a bid to shutter what he called a “criminal-loving agenda,” but District Judge Mary Lou Alvarez ruled that no attorneys with Paxton’s office could try the case, and that the suit would be dismissed in a week unless authorized counsel took their place.
The county’s immigration services program’s end is scheduled for Feb. 28, a day after the court’s deadline to Paxton’s office.
Paxton argued in both lawsuits that these programs “serve no public purpose and instead constitute unconstitutional grants of public funds to private entities to subsidize individual deportation defenses.”
He has asked the court to stop officials in Harris and Bexar counties from disbursing funds to these organizations immediately, and bar them from doing so in the future.
But the appeals court found no evidence that these grants, which are provided in exchange for specific legal services, qualify as an unconstitutional gift. The judges note that Harris County has strict requirements on who can utilize these services and require the entities that receive the grants to document the services they provide. The county can stop providing these grants if a service provider doesn’t comply, which they’ve done twice, the court notes.
While many programs are “favored by one faction or political party but not another,” the judiciary should not second-guess those policy choices unless they can show that a program is clearly unconstitutional, the judges wrote.
Paxton has filed similar lawsuits against the cities of Austin and San Antonio over their support of nonprofit organizations that help Texans access abortions. 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.
Harris County Attorney Jonathan Fombonne said the ruling made it clear that Paxton’s “claims don’t match the facts.”
“This program has operated responsibly for years and continues to serve a legitimate public purpose,” Fombonne said in a statement. “We clearly have the authority to serve residents in this manner, and my office will continue to defend this program.”
Harris County commissioner Adrian Garcia said in a statement that this program had operated responsibly and without issue for years.
“That is, until Ken Paxton decided to run for higher office,” he said. Paxton is challenging Sen. John Cornyn in a contentious GOP primary.
In Tuesday’s ruling, the appeals court echoed Garcia, saying the program “has been operating since 2021 without apparent objection or controversy.”
“The State has yet to produce proof that despite several years in operation, the program has resulted in any actual harm to residents of Harris County or the state,” the judges wrote.
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Ayden Runnels contributed to this story.
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This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
