Romney explains how Operation Gaykeeper will work (AP)

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu is no stranger to being on the front lines of both Arizona's border with Mexico and GOP politicking. Babeu is running for Congress, had previously appeared with John McCain in a 2008 campaign ad, and used to be the co-chair of Mitt Romney's Arizona campaign. But the hard-line, anti-immigrant Sheriff was recently outed by his boyfriend, an immigrant, for threatening him with deportation if he didn't keep quiet about his homosexuality. Mexican Mitt Romney wants Babeu to know that he's fully in support of "Operation Gaykeeper," in which Babeu “keeps out the harmful straight illegals and keeps in the desirable and precious gayliens.”

No, Mexican Mitt Romney isn't real—but neither is the doctrine of "self-deportation" which Romney claims will solve the country's immigration woes. That phrase—which means that somehow illegal immigrants will leave on their own free will if they're treated poorly enough by the United States—was created by Mexican-American satirists Lalo Alcaraz and Esteban Zul; Alcaraz runs Mexican Mitt Romney's Twitter feed.

So many people actually believed the self-deportation line (see: people thinking The Onion is real) that Telemundo invited Alcaraz's fictional character, Daniel D. Portado, to appear on TV in 1994. “It was the longest half-hour of my life," Alcaraz said.

Babeu stepped down from his job as Romney's co-chair, and denies making the threats against his boyfriend, but does admit to being gay. Asked for his thoughts on Romney using the "self-deportation" strategy that he invented, Alcaraz told the Times, “I felt like the world had stood still.”