PRESS RELEASEDate: 14 June 2000Subject: Texas group forms to help Arizona ranchers protect against trespassers and repair property damageContact: Mark HarjuEmail: publicaffairs@ranchrescue.comWebsite: http://www.ranchrescue.com14 June 2000 (Dallas, Texas, USA) — The citizen volunteer group ‘Ranch Rescue’ today announced its formation in Dallas, Texas. The group is actively recruiting members to help ranchers on the Arizona / Mexico border cope with the damage to their property caused by thousands of criminal trespassers.

Thousands of undocumented aliens pass through the Douglas, Arizona area every month, from across the border with nearby Mexico. The ranch owners in the area report hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage from the resulting criminal trespass on their private property. Trespassers cut fence lines, damage water irrigation systems, steal and slaughter livestock,

break into the ranchers’ homes and nearby businesses, and assault the ranchers.

Ranch Rescue will repair the downed fences, fix the broken irrigation systems, round up scattered livestock, and assist the Cochise County local ranch owners in protecting their private property against a vast number of criminal trespassers, some of whom are heavily armed drug smugglers. Ranchers and local law enforcement in the area have been overwhelmed by the sheer number of trespassers, and federal immigration law enforcement in the area has been unable to prevent the number of illegal border crossers from increasing dramatically over the past year.

The US Border Patrol reports a 350 percent increase in the apprehension of illegal border crossers in Arizona from 1994 to 1999. The number of apprehensions in Douglas nearly doubled between April 1999 and April 2000. Local ranchers say that the number actually caught is only a fraction of the number that make it far enough into southeastern Arizona to damage the ranchers’ private property.

The Texas-based grassroots group will travel this fall to the Douglas, Arizona area to offer their assistance during what the ranchers report to be the annual peak of criminal trespass activity. Ranch Rescue will join the ranchers in a “Neighborhood Watch” over the ranch properties to guard them against illegal activity and will assist the property owners in lawful

apprehension of criminal trespassers. Trespassers so apprehended will be lawfully detained for immediate turnover to law enforcement.

According to the group’s Volunteer Coordinator and co-founder Jack Foote, “We are a group of Texas ranchers and other folks dedicated to preserving and defending the private property rights of individual citizens. We are appalled by the utter lack of effective action on this issue by the Arizona governor and the federal government. Whatever the state and federal authorities have been doing for the past 2 years, it has just simply not worked.

The number of criminal trespassers in the Douglas, Arizona area has increased, not decreased. To us, this is no longer an immigration issue, it is a mass criminal activity issue… The ranchers in Douglas are in need of helping hands, so we are going to provide them with ours.”

Ranch Rescue is based in Arlington, Texas and their website is at http://www.ranchrescue.com .

The group’s Volunteer Coordinator can be reached at volunteer@ranchrescue.com.

The Public Affairs Office can be contacted by the media at publicaffairs@ranchrescue.com.