Mexican TV Anchor Jorge Ramos Sued -- Your Crappy Reporting Almost Got Me Killed!

Famed Mexican news anchor Jorge Ramos allegedly placed an innocent man in the crosshairs of Guatemalan crime lords ... by falsely pegging him as the U.S. Federal agent who arrested a key member of a human smuggling ring ... so claims the victim in a new lawsuit.

Byron Lemus claims he became a man on the run after the release of Jorge's book, "Dying to Cross." Jorge wrote in his book that Lemus was the Eliot Ness of Immigration who took down the massive Central American human smuggling cell 10 years ago.

Lemus claims criminals connected to the smuggling cell have since threatened the lives of him and his family ... once nearly killing them in a drive-by shooting -- all because of Jorge's book.

Sources close to Lemus tell us, he did work at the U.S. embassy at the time of the investigation -- but he was basically a low-level chauffeur who had ZERO involvement with the bust.

We're told Lemus and his family have been forced to move to the U.S. because of the target on his back. He's currently working as a day laborer.