MONTGOMERY, Ala. (Legal Newsline) - A border control advocacy group has filed a defamation lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center for classifying it as a hate group.
Donald King and The Dustin Inman Society filed a lawsuit April 27 in Montgomery, Ala., federal court against SPLC, claiming it has failed to justify designating the society as an anti-immigration hate group.
SPLC publishes a list of hate groups on an annual basis and changed its tune on DIS, which was founded in 2005, in 2018.
"What did change is that on March 1, 2018, Defendant SPLC registered lobbyists to work against a pro-enforcement bill pending in the Georgia General Assembly," the suit says. Georgia is DIS's home state.
"While Defendant SPLC goes on to state that it does not place this classification on individuals, the published reports focus almost exclusively on allegations regarding Plaintiff King to support the designation as an 'anti-immigrant hate group,'" the suit adds.
"In none of the defamatory material published by Defendant SPLC does it allege that Plaintiff King or Plaintiff DIS maligned an entire class of people or at any time fit any part of the Defendant SPLC's own definition of 'anti-immigrant hate group.'"
Statements made by King and DIS were taken out of context, the suit says.