A rather astonishing video has surfaced courtesy of the Rick Santorum campaign showing Ted Cruz, apparently during a debate over Marco Rubio's Gang of 8 "Amnesty Bill," calling for a provision that would legalize all 11-plus million illegal aliens.  He even used the liberal code phrase "out of the shadows."  I encourage you to watch the video and see for yourself.

Ted Cruz has stood for securing the border along with Donald Trump and Ben Carson, but he has been conspicuously silent on the issue of deporting illegals.  I think the reason why is now clear.  He doesn't want to deport them; he wants to legalize them.  Now, Ted Cruz would be the first to say he doesn't want to give them a path to citizenship, but, realistically, once they are legalized, the left won't long tolerate a class of people here who don't have citizenship, and the left will act, through the judiciary or the executive, to legalize them.  So Ted Cruz saying he opposes a path to citizenship but supports legalizing is not a tremendous difference.

Ted Cruz speaks frequently about the rule of law and constitutionalism; how can he say he supports the rule of law when he supports rewarding millions of lawbreakers with legalization?  It's worth noting that Cruz has also called for expanding H1-B visas, but in that process we can at least screen for people who are educated and have marketable skills.  It's not just a random set of people who decide they want to come to America.  But that unvetted group, too, is what Cruz wants to legalize.

It's disappointing that there is not a single candidate out there who will talk about deporting illegal aliens and keeping them deported.  The best we have thus far is Donald Trump, who promises to deport them all...but then permit an unspecified number to return.

Cruz has been in the news for criticizing Marco Rubio's efforts to push amnesty for illegal aliens.  But with his own efforts to legalize these same aliens, how much daylight is there between the two of them?

This article was written by Ed Straker, senior writer of NewsMachete.com, the conservative news site.