Life really can be stranger than fiction.

There’s been some buzz this week about an “illegal alien” costume that was briefly listed at Target.com. Target says the costume was never intended for sale, and that it was added to their website by mistake. Mistakes happen. Go and sin no more.

But the anti-illegal-immigration groups are jumping all over this, according to one source:

Americans for Legal Immigration PAC’s President William Gheen is … offering to wear the costume during media interviews next week. “The illegal alien supporting groups in America are attacking free speech once again,” said Gheen. “These are the same types of people that are trying to ban Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck from television. They want to control what people can see, hear, say, or even wear for Halloween in pursuit of their open borders agenda.”

Someone is trying to ban Lou Dobbs from TV?!

All kidding aside, the public outcry isn’t about a Halloween costume. It’s about dehumanizing people who hope for a better future for themselves and for their families.

Yes, it’s wrong that they sneak across the border illegally. Yes, it’s true that illegal immigrants are stressing the health-care and housing infrastructures in some communities.

But they’re also performing jobs that a lot of Americans would be unwilling to do. Like it or not, they’re an important (if hidden) part of our economy.

So, Mr. William Gheen: Unless you’ve lived in a shanty town with no potable water, and unless you’re willing to behead chickens on an assembly line for 10 hours a day, or be driven from farm to farm to harvest vegetables in the scorching sun, you really can’t begin to understand just how tough these “aliens'” lives are.

And further dehumanizing them will do no one any good.