Since it seems that Donald Trump is setting the standard for toughness on illegal aliens (never mind his past, even three weeks ago), it seems appropriate to compare the policies of other candidates to him to see how they measure up.

Those as tough as the Donald:

Ted Cruz: Ted Cruz has been fighting against illegal immigration for years.  He's the only candidate with a consistent history of it.  As for birthright citizenship, he's against it, but he apparently erroneously believes we need to change the Constitution to fix it.

Bobby Jindal:

The Louisiana governor quickly aligned himself with Trump, saying, "We need to end birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants." Jindal also said last week that the United States needs to crackdown on sanctuary cities, those that don't comply with federal immigration law and "hyphenated Americans."

Scott Walker:

Scott Walker says we need to end birthright citizenship and build a border fence with Mexico.  That's his position as of last week.  Before that, it was different.  Even more different than last year.

Those who are vague or lax:

Jeb Bush: He supports massive amnesty.

Chris Christie: Christie says birthright citizenship is required by the Constitution (it isn't) and that a wall won't solve all our problems (true – it will only solve quite a lot of them).

Carly Fiorina: Carly wants to deport aliens who have "committed crimes," where I think she means additional crimes, so most of them, who have committed merely the crime of illegal entry, would get to stay.  She also says that ending birthright citizenship would be "difficult" (it would require only an act of Congress).  Why are people crazy about her?  I don't know.

Lindsey Graham: Lindsey says a border fence is "gibberish" and "unworkable," but he is willing to amend the Constitution to end birthright citizenship.  He doesn't seem to agree that it can be done with a simple law.

Ben Carson:  Ben Carson is a mixed bag on immigration.

"What I have said consistently is that we need seal our borders," he said. "We can use a whole series of things to do that, not just fences and walls, but electronic surveillance and drones." During a separate stop, he said that he supports ending birthright citizenship, which he called "stupid."

Ben Carson has the right instincts on birthright citizenship, but when he discounts fences and walls and talks about "electronic surveillance," that sounds like what we're currently doing, which isn't enough.

Mike Huckabee:

Huckabee did push back against Trump's call to deport all undocumented immigrants.

"I don't see how that's realistic. I'm not sure that that's necessary." He added that changing the 14th Amendment would "require a little bit more discussion."

John Kasich:

Earlier this week, he backed building a wall to secure the border[.] ... And then the 12 million that are here, legalize them, but make sure we don't have anybody — any of the criminal element here and have a guest-worker program. I think the country can unite around that." Kasich, separately, is reversing his support for ending birthright citizenship, a move that puts him at odds with Trump. 

Rand Paul:

"His [Trump's immigration policy, that seems to have won him a lot of attention, is to send 11 million people to Mexico," Paul told the Independent Journal Review. "How is he going to practically do that? If he is going to take the time to do that then why is he all of the sudden going to re-admit them all?

Rand may be against deportation, but he is also against birthright citizenship.  But what use is ending birthright citizenship if there are no deportations?

Marco Rubio: Rubio had his own bill to legalize illegal aliens.  Enough said.

On this issue, it seems that Trump, Jindal, Cruz, and Walker are in a category of their own, if you believe what they say.  The rest of the pack is uncomfortably vague answering basic questions on whether they would build a border fence or deport illegal aliens.

This article was produced by NewsMachete.com, the conservative news site.