The owners of Colony Ridge filed a defamation lawsuit this week against media personality Alex Jones and former Republican gubernatorial candidate Pete Chambers, seeking more than $10 million in damages over statements the two men made about the controversial Liberty County housing development earlier this year.
The suit centers on a video Jones posted to X on February 6 in which he and Chambers described Colony Ridge as overrun by cartel activity and as a refuge for people in the country illegally.
According to the lawsuit, the two referred to the development as a “mortgage scam,” a “giant fraud site,” and a “Sanctuary City” under the control of Mexican drug cartels.
Jones deleted the post from X after it accumulated at least 650,000 views, but the video remained up on Banned.video, where it has since been viewed more than 600,000 additional times. Colony Ridge says no correction or retraction was ever issued.
John Harris, one of the development’s owners, told the Houston Chronicle the company had grown tired of seeing Colony Ridge used as what he called a “political football.”
“We don’t want our customers to be subjected to that, and we were finally fed up enough to stand up and fight back,” Harris said.
Colony Ridge contends the cartel characterization is false and points to its funding of 13 dedicated law enforcement officers in the area as evidence.
The lawsuit follows a $68 million settlement Colony Ridge reached with the Trump administration and Texas earlier this year, resolving enforcement actions brought by the Department of Justice, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
The Biden administration originally filed suit in December 2023, with the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division alleging that Colony Ridge used predatory lending practices and exploited language barriers to steer buyers into loans many could not sustain. Texas filed its own suit in 2024 alleging deceptive trade practices and fraud in real estate transactions. Colony Ridge denied wrongdoing but agreed to the settlement terms.
As reported in February, the settlement requires Colony Ridge to verify the legal status of buyers going forward, mandating that purchasers present a Texas-issued ID or valid immigration documents. The company must also screen buyers against terrorism watch lists and check for affiliations with transnational criminal organizations.
Colony Ridge is barred from seeking approval for new residential plats for direct-to-consumer land sales for three years and must put at least $48 million toward infrastructure improvements and $20 million toward increased law enforcement presence over the next decade.
U.S. District Judge Alfred Bennett declined to approve the agreement, questioning why the settlement provided no direct compensation to buyers allegedly harmed by the lending practices and why $20 million was directed toward immigration enforcement when the original complaint made no mention of public safety.
At an April hearing, Bennett asked federal prosecutors directly who had proposed the law enforcement provision. The DOJ responded by voluntarily dismissing the case and implementing the settlement as a private agreement, effectively bypassing the court’s ability to supervise compliance. Reporting later revealed that Paxton’s office had suggested the immigration enforcement allocation during settlement negotiations.
Colony Ridge has been a recurring flashpoint in Texas politics since at least 2023, when it drew statewide attention due to the development’s marketing practices that advertised to buyers who lacked Social Security numbers or traditional loan eligibility. The development, operated by John and William Harris, grew from roughly 20,000 residents in 2020 to an estimated 50,000 to 75,000.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, after touring the area with law enforcement, described what he saw as appearing to be “an illegal immigrant city, about 35 miles outside of Houston.” In February 2025, Gov. Greg Abbott announced a joint state and federal operation targeting criminal illegal aliens in the development, which he said had been coordinated with Border Czar Tom Homan for several months.
Harris pushed back on the characterization of Colony Ridge as a haven for people in the country illegally. “There are not that many people out here that are illegal,” he said in a recent interview. “And there never were.”
