A landowner guides a Ranch Rescue volunteer on his property in this photograph taken from Ranch Rescue's Web site.

"The actions of Ranch Rescue and its volunteers are very similar to those of hate groups that we have sued in the past," said Center chief trial counsel Morris Dees. "This as an important case intended to stop violent paramilitary activity along our border with Mexico. If these groups and the ranchers who conspire with them have to pay for their actions, they will think twice before attacking peaceful migrants seeking a better life."

Joe Sutton, one of the suit's five defendants, is a Jim Hogg County rancher who this spring invited armed Ranch Rescue volunteers to repel Latinos who regularly cross his property. The plaintiffs ý four from Mexico and two from El Salvador ý claim that they were violently assaulted, falsely imprisoned, robbed at gunpoint and threatened with death in two March incidents on the Sutton ranch.

Center documented extreme tactics
Based in Abilene, Ranch Rescue has conducted similar "operations" in other locations along the U.S. southern border. The Center documented its vigilante tactics in Arizona in "Open Season" in the spring issue of the Intelligence Report. (See Immigrants Face Deadly Threats.) Local law enforcement officials have denounced Ranch Rescue's extreme actions, and two of the lawsuit's defendants face serious criminal charges in connection with the March assault.

The suit claims one of the Salvadorans seized by Ranch Rescue was pistol-whipped. The Mexicans caught crossing Sutton's ranch were forced to walk barefoot through rough terrain after having their shoes confiscated. Money hidden in a shoe was stolen.

After their assault, the plaintiffs sought the assistance of the Mexican consulate in Laredo, which referred them to Ricardo de Anda, a local attorney. De Anda then contacted the Center for assistance.

Ranch Rescue president and national spokesman Jack Foote, who helped lead the attacks, is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit. Foote has described Mexicans as "dog turds" who are "ignorant, uneducated and desperate for a life in a decent nation because the one [they] live in is nothing but a pile of dog [excrement] made up of millions of little dog turds ..."

The lawsuit, Leiva vs. Ranch Rescue, was filed May 29 by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), de Anda and John Judge, a lawyer in Austin. It seeks monetary damages.

MALDEF is a national nonprofit organization that promotes and protects the rights of Latinos through advocacy, community education, leadership development and litigation.

SPLC Report
June 2003