MCALLEN, Texas – Texas is widening investigations into aid organizations along the U.S.-Mexico border over claims that nonprofits are helping migrants illegally enter the country, taking some groups to court and making demands that a judge called harassment after the state tried shuttering an El Paso shelter.

The efforts are led by Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office has defended the state’s increasingly aggressive actions on the border, including razor wire barriers and a law that would allow police to arrest migrants who enter the U.S. illegally.

Since February, Paxton has asked for documents from at least four groups in Texas that provide shelter and food to migrants. That includes one of the largest migrant aid organizations in Texas, Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, which on Wednesday asked a court to stop what the group called a “fishing expedition into a pond where no one has ever seen a fish.”

The scrutiny from the state has not stopped the organizations’ work. But leaders of some groups say the investigations have caused some volunteers to leave and worry it will cast a chilling effect among those working to help migrants in Texas.

Here are some things to know about the investigations and the groups:

What started the investigations?

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott sent Paxton a letter in 2022 urging him to investigate the role nongovernmental organizations play in “planning and facilitating the illegal transportation of illegal immigrants across our borders.” Two years earlier, Abbott began rolling out his multibillion-dollar border security apparatus known as Operation Lone Star.

Without citing evidence, Abbott’s letter referenced unspecified “recent reports” that some groups may be acting unlawfully. Paxton later accused Annunciation House in El Paso, one of the oldest migrant shelters on the border, of human smuggling and other crimes.

The groups have denied the accusations and no charges have been filed.

Other Republicans and conservative groups have cheered on Texas’ effort.

Which groups are targets?

Many nonprofit organizations on the Texas border are faith-based and have operated for years — and in some cases decades — without state scrutiny.

Several groups have coordinated with Abbott’s busing program that has transported more than 119,000 migrants to Democratic-led cities across the U.S. Some of those partnerships began to erode, however, following reports of poor conditions onboard the buses and frustration among migrant aid groups that migrants were arriving in cities without warning.

In addition to Annunciation House, Paxton has sent letters to Angeles Sin Fronteras in Mission, Texas; Team Brownsville; and Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley.

The Catholic Charities group is part of the Brownsville diocese and offers services to existing residents as well as migrants. It opened a shelter for migrants in 2017 that typically receives more than 1,000 people a week, most of whom stay only a few days.

In court documents, Catholic Charities said it provided over 100 pages of documents to Paxton’s office and a sworn statement from its executive director. But in June, Paxton asked a court to allow the state to depose a member of the organization about intake procedures, communication with local and state law enforcement, and the organization’s “practices for facilitating alien crossings over the Texas-Mexico border.”

Catholic Charities has denied wrongdoing and this week asked a judge to deny Paxton’s request.

What have courts said so far?

This week, a judge in El Paso accused Paxton’s office of overreaching in its pursuit of evidence of criminal activity.

That ruling involved Annunciation House, whose records Paxton began seeking in February. The Catholic shelter in El Paso opened in 1978.

In a scathing ruling, state District Judge Francisco X. Dominguez said Paxton’s attempts to enforce a subpoena for records of migrants violated the shelter’s constitutional rights.

“This is outrageous and intolerable,” the judge wrote.

Paxton’s office has not returned messages seeking comment on the ruling. The state could appeal the decision.

It is not clear when a court might rule in the investigation involving Catholic Charities.

Have Texas’ actions disrupted aid groups?

Each group that received letters from Paxton’s office has continued to offer aid to migrants.

But at Annunciation House, executive director Ruben Garcia said negative comments from Paxton have caused some volunteers to leave over concerns that they could get caught up in the legal process.

Marissa Limon Garza, the executive director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso, said the legal actions toward their partners are seen as an attack on values of binational communities that help migrant communities. Garza added it’s had a “chilling” effect.

“If this organization that has over 40 years of commitment to standing in solidarity with the most vulnerable in our region is in the eye of the administration, that makes you wonder if your organization will be next,” Limon Garza said.

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Texas’ most populous cities lost roughly 88 billion gallons of water last year because of aging water infrastructure and extreme heat, costing them millions of dollars and straining the state’s water supply, according to self-reported water loss audits.

The documents show that bigger municipalities are not immune to water issues often seen in smaller, less-resourced communities around the state. All but one big city saw increased water loss from last year’s audits.

While cities are losing water because of inaccurate meters or other data issues, the main factors are leaks and main breaks.

Here’s how much each of Texas’ biggest cities lost last year, according to their self-reported audits:

• Houston: 31.8 billion
• San Antonio: 19.5 billion
• Dallas: 17.6 billion
• Austin: 7.1 billion
• Fort Worth: 5.9 billion
• El Paso: 4.8 billion

Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth and El Paso must submit water loss audits to the Texas Water Development Board yearly. Other water agencies must do audits only every five years, unless the city has over 3,300 connections or receives money from the board.

“What we have right now is not sustainable [or] tenable,” said Jennifer Walker, National Wildlife Federation’s Texas Coast and Water Program director.

The cities of Houston and Dallas saw the biggest increase in lost water reported. Houston saw a 30% jump from last year’s audit, while Dallas saw an increase of 18%.

Houston is the largest populous city in the state, home to roughly 2.3 million Texans; it lost around 31 billion gallons of water last year.

Houston Public Works blames the region’s long drought from June 2022 to December last year for the increase. Droughts cause clay in soil to dry up and shrink, stressing older water lines and making them more likely to break and leak. Officials said this, combined with aging infrastructure, led to a significant increase in water leaks across the city.

“HPW will continue to pursue all funding options available to help replace aging infrastructure,” the Houston spokesperson said.

Aging infrastructure isn’t only a Houston problem. Dallas officials said they only expected a roughly 4% increase in water loss in 2023. They saw a double-digit increase instead.

A Dallas Water Utilities spokesperson said the city is investigating the cause of the increase and “reviewing records to ensure all allowable unbilled/unmetered authorized uses were properly accounted for in the 2023 calculation.”

On the other side of North Texas, Fort Worth saw an increase from 5.6 billion gallons lost in 2022 to 5.9 billion gallons in 2023, losing Cowtown more than $8 million.

Walker, from the National Wildlife Federation, said numbers are also rising because cities are getting more accurate in reporting water loss.

Fort Worth has a “MyH2O program” that replaced all manual read meters with remote read meters and implemented a Real Water Loss Management Plan in 2020 to focus the city efforts related to leak surveys, leak detection and the creation of district metering areas.

“It is actually a testament to how we are using available data to make better decisions and improve reporting with a higher level of confidence,” said Fort Worth Water Conservation Manager Micah Reed.

Last year, voters passed a proposition that created a new fund specifically for water infrastructure projects that are overseen by the Texas Water Development Board.

The agency now has $1 billion to invest in projects that address various issues, from water loss and quality to acquiring new water sources and addressing Texas’ deteriorating pipes. It’s the largest investment in water infrastructure by state lawmakers since 2013.

Walker calls the $1 billion a “drop in the bucket.”

Texas 2036, an Austin-based think tank, expects the state needs to spend more than $150 billion over the next 50 years on water infrastructure.

While some of the Texas Water Fund must be focused on projects in rural areas with populations of less than 150,000, Walker said the bigger cities could also receive some funding.

In San Antonio, the San Antonio Water System isn’t “waiting for [the state] to come and tackle the problem for us.”

The city lost around 19 billion gallons of water in 2023 and has seen an increase over the last five years.

“We’re in a state that doesn’t even fund public education,” said Robert Puente, president and CEO of the San Antonio Water System. “So good luck to us getting some money from the state on these issues.”

Earlier this week, the SAWS board of trustees unanimously approved a new five-year water conservation plan.

The city of Austin lost around 7 billion gallons of water in 2023.

Austin has hired a consultant to review our water loss practices and metrics, according to city officials. The capital city is also in the process of replacing water mains around Austin.

Walker said while Texas lawmakers should invest more money in water infrastructure, city officials also need to hire more staff and better planning to address water loss.

The one city that lost less water in 2023 was El Paso, which reported losing 475 million fewer gallons last year. Since El Paso is in the desert, water conservation and having a “watertight” infrastructure is the city’s main focus, said Aide Fuentes, El Paso Wastewater Treatment Manager.

“That makes us a little bit different from the rest of Texas in that sense,” Fuentes said.

El Paso Water officials aim to reduce water loss by 10%.

Walker said the data shows that cities should make the case to the state lawmakers to continue to address water Infrastructure in the next legislative session. She added this issue isn’t going away.

“We really need [to] try to live with what we have and not lose the water that we already have in place and make sure that it’s reaching its intended destination,” Walker said.

Disclosure: San Antonio Water System and Texas 2036 have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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A shark bit three people off a southern Texas beach in what the city’s fire chief called an unprecedented incident on the Fourth of July, the same day another person was bitten by a shark in Florida, officials said.

In Texas, three people were bitten in the city of South Padre Island, on a barrier island near Brownsville, and the shark was later located and “pushed out to deeper water,” Fire Chief Jim Pigg said.

“It’s unprecedented here on South Padre Island,” he said. There were two shark bite incidents at different times and locations Thursday, he said.

Police responded to a 911 call that reported “a severe shark bite to the leg” at 11 a.m., city spokesperson Nikki Soto said, and the victim was taken to a local hospital.

After a second 911 call about a shark attack, firefighters found two people who had been bitten by a shark, Pigg said. They were also taken to a hospital.

Kyle Jud, 46, said he saw a woman pulled from the water who appeared to have a bite to a leg.

“Beach patrol lifted her up — her calf was just gone, shredded. Horrific,” Jud said. He posted video of a shark in the water as a helicopter and a boat patrolled.

One of the victims was flown out of a Brownsville hospital for further treatment, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department said.

“Shark encounters of this nature are not a common occurrence in Texas,” the department said. “When bites from sharks do occur, they are usually a case of mistaken identity by sharks looking for food.”

Pigg said that it has not been determined what type of shark was involved and that an investigation was underway.

Lifeguards were encouraging people in South Padre Island, a beach town of around 2,000 on the barrier island of the same name, to stay out of the water or at least to go no further than knee-deep, Pigg said.

After the shark was spotted and pushed out to deeper water, there had been no further sightings, but Pigg said officials would stay vigilant.

South Padre Island Mayor Patrick McNulty said, “Our hearts and prayers are with the injured and their families and we hope for a speedy recovery.” 

In New Smyrna Beach, Florida, a 21-year-old man was bitten by a shark while he was playing football in knee-deep water around 4 p.m., said Tamra Malphurs, interim director of Volusia County Beach Safety.

The man, who was visiting the city on the Atlantic coast from Ohio, was taken to a hospital, and his injuries are not believed to be life-threatening, Malphurs said.

There were 36 unprovoked shark attacks against humans in the U.S. last year, and two of those people died, the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File said in its most recent annual report.

The project, which documents shark attacks around the world, says that the risk of being attacked by a shark is relatively very small but that swimmers can minimize their risk even further by staying in groups and closer to shore.