Ted Cruz has made the interesting argument that he is tougher on illegal immigration than Donald Trump.  Trump has called for the mass deportation of illegals but promised to let the "good ones" back in.  He has never described what percent of illegals are the "good ones," and many Trump supporters, caught up in the cult of personality for the candidate, don't seem interested in the details.

But Ted Cruz has said he will enforce the law, and the law requires the deportation of illegal aliens.  If Cruz will enforce the law, and Donald Trump will allow illegals back into America, does this mean that Ted Cruz is tougher on illegal immigration than Donald Trump?

Not necessarily.  It is true that Ted Cruz was the first to call for finishing the border fence, back when Donald Trump was still calling for amnesty for illegal aliens.  But Donald Trump has called for legislatively ending birthright citizenship, something Cruz is doubtful of.

What it seems to come down to is that Cruz will order deportations, with no option to return, and Trump will order mass deportations, with options to return for an unknown number after an unknown period of time.

I remember in the last Bush administration, ICE (the immigrations and custom service) would every so often stage a raid of a large poultry plant and deport some  illegals but for the most part would never go to the obvious places and communities where illegal aliens were located to deport illegals en masse.  If Cruz is talking about merely returning to the "show raid" period of the George W. Bush administration, very few illegals would be deported.

On the other hand, we have no idea how many illegals Donald Trump would offer citizenship to, and Ted Cruz has said unambiguously that whether deported or not, he would not offer citizenship to illegal aliens.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz struck a hard line on immigration, declaring before a campaign stop in Kennesaw on Friday that he opposes granting the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. citizenship "today, tomorrow, forever."

That's pretty unambiguous.  There's no mention of amnesty for untold "good ones."  So, given these uncertainties, perhaps Ted Cruz really is tougher on illegal immigration than Donald Trump.

As the primaries grow closer and closer, I realize what a risk it is to support Donald Trump.  Even today he is liberal on so many issues, and the issues he has changed on, like immigration, he has come to only in the past year.  I rationalized the idea of supporting Trump on the grounds that he was the best candidate to deal with immigration, but without any elaboration on how many "good ones" will get citizenship, I think Ted Cruz is the safer candidate on this issue, and he certainly is better on nearly all the other issues as well, at least if you're a constitutional conservative.

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