Government Wrongly Tries to Deport US Army Veteran

See, this is why the immigration issue is important to all Latinos. Not that Latinos should become a single-issue political block or cultural force, but the nature of it is such that what affects some affects us all.

Case in point: Rennison Castillo. According to Fox News Latino he’s a US Army vet, I’ll say it again, a US Army vet, who spent seven months locked up in an immigration detention center because officials didn’t believe he was a US citizen.

How in the friggin’ world does that happen!!!

Castillo is originally from Belize, he served in the Army where he became a naturalized citizen. He was arrested for violating a protective order as well as for harassment. But because he may have “looked” like an immigrant he was taken to an immigration center, where he told officials that was a was a US Citizen, and for seven months they didn’t believe him.

His arrest and the reasons behind it are not part of this conversation. If he did what he’s accused of doing, citizen or not, he should answer for it. But the fact that US agents didn’t believe a citizen, a Latino at that, speaks directly to what’s at the heart of the immigration debate.

There but for the grace of luck and not “looking” like an immigrant to a random law enforcer go I.

The end of the story? Castillo

…has received a rare apology and $400,000 for his ordeal.