By The Time I Get To...Illinois?

What, you thought our Deportation Nation was limited to the Grand Canyon State?

Eduardo Caraballo, a U.S. citizen born in the United States, was detained for over three days on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant.

Despite presenting identifying documents and even his birth certificate, Caraballo was held by federal immigration authorities over the weekend and threatened with deportation, according to an NBC Chicago report. He was only released when his congressman, Luis Gutierrez -- a vocal supporter of immigration reform -- intervened on his behalf.

Caraballo was born in Puerto Rico, making him a natural-born citizen of the United States. He moved to the mainland as an infant, and now lives in Chicago.

Last week, NBC reports that he was arrested in connection with a stolen car in Berwyn. Caraballo maintains his innocence. In any case, when his mother posted bail on Friday, he was not freed.

"Instead of being released, he was told by authorities that Immigration and Customs Enforcement was detaining him because he was an illegal immigrant," NBC reports.

Caraballo spent the weekend in the custody of federal immigration agents. When he presented them with ID and his birth certificate, he says officials were skeptical: "Because of the way I look, I have Mexican features, they pretty much assumed that my papers were fake."

Guilty until proven innocent.  That's the regime the GOP wants for Latinos.  Gotta prove you are a US citizen, and do it time and time again, onus is on you, not the government.  What's to stop the police from saying your papers are fake and deporting you anyway?  That's a hell of an implied threat.  You're Latino...what can you do about it?  Your word against ours, hermano.  And you lose.

You're naive if you don't think this is going on in police precincts all over the United States in 2010.  If you can't round up and deport millions, make being Latino in the United States such a terrible experience that they all want to leave, right?  That's got to be a hell of a thing, being a second or third generation Latino in the US and knowing that if the right people decide you've done the wrong thing, you're gone.

Nobody could have predicted that the GOP's purity campaign would result in stories like this.  Nobody could have predicted that Latinos are now flocking in huge numbers to the Democrats, either.