SAN ANTONIO – Bexar County scored a win Friday in a lawsuit targeting its Immigrant Legal Services program.
District Judge Mary Lou Alvarez ruled Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office did not have the authority to bring a lawsuit that claimed the county’s distribution of funds for the program was unconstitutional.
Alvarez ordered Paxton and his office’s attorneys can no longer appear in the case.
“Absent express constitutional authority or authority provided through the Texas legislature, (Paxton) doesn’t have the authority to just sue counties whenever he disagrees with their discretionary funding decisions‚" Bexar County Assistant District Attorney Lisa Cubriel told reporters after the judge’s ruling.
The court provided a Feb. 27 deadline for someone else “authorized to act” to take on the case. If no one does, the court said it will strike the pleadings.
However, the deadline comes one day before the contract for the programs is set to expire.
“It’s been in place for over a year,” Larry Roberson, the Civil Division Chief in the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office said. “The attorney general filed suit in February — early February. It ends February 28, and we have wasted a tremendous amount of judicial resources, lots of litigation resources — I have a whole team behind me, resources with the attorney general’s office — for a contract that ends in eight days, five business days.”
Bexar County commissioners voted to approve two $500,000 agreements in May 2024 with American Gateways and Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) to provide legal representation for indigent immigrants facing the threat of deportation or in danger of losing their immigration status.
Commissioners approved the contracts 3-1, with Precinct 3 Commissioner Grant Moody voting against them and Precinct 4 Commissioner Tommy Calvert abstaining.
In December 2025, commissioners voted 4-1, with Moody dissenting again, to extend the contract with American Gateways through Feb. 28, using $566,181 of unspent funds from the agreements.
Laura Flores Dixon with American Gateways told commissioners at the December meeting the “vast majority” of their clients were “families, children, who were arrested while lawfully attending immigration court proceedings.”
Asked after Alvarez’s ruling if the county would continue to do similar contracts, Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai said “we will consider what the needs of our community is.”
“We have won today, and we will be back in about a week,” Sakai said. “And then we will then decide what future services are needed for these children and families."
Another judge rejected a similar lawsuit Paxton’s office filed against Harris County last December.
Why Paxton sued?
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.”
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.
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 2025, the 15th Court of Appeals blocked San Antonio from using the funds the city had allocated to potentially help people who needed to travel out of the state for abortions.
The city asked for the appeal to be dismissed in September 2025 after a new state law took effect that blocks cities and other government entities from providing public money to help with logistical support for women seeking abortions.
The attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to request for comment.
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