ICAP represented Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley (CCRGV) in defending against an investigation by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton into the organization’s humanitarian services for immigrants. As part of its religious mission to assist the vulnerable, CCRGV operates a respite center at the border that provides food and shelter to asylum seekers who have already been processed and released by the federal government. Despite CCRGV’s extensive cooperation, the Attorney General sought to compel a pre-suit deposition of the organization’s executive director, Sister Norma Pimentel.
In August 2025, the Texas Fifteenth Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s ruling in favor of CCRGV, holding that the state failed to demonstrate that the benefits of such a deposition outweighed the significant burden on the charity’s operations. By successfully resisting Paxton’s investigation, ICAP protected CCRGV’s ability to carry out its essential charitable mission and defended the principle that state power cannot be used to harass religious organizations for political ends.
