How to lose the Latino vote: the immigration policies favored by Trump and Cruz will alienate people Republicans need to win.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: Columns

DONALD TRUMP, THE FRONT-RUNNER for the Republican presidential nomination, has promised to deport the II million people who live in the United States without the government's permission. Ted Cruz, Trump's closest rival, echoes that commitment, while Marco Rubio, who as I write is vying with Cruz to be the anti-Trump, has renounced the "path to citizenship" he used to support and wants to double the size of the U.S. Border Patrol, even as net migration from Mexico has dropped below zero.

On the face of it, the Republican Party is not in a very pro-immigrant mood. Yet the positions staked out by Trump and Cruz are unpopular even among Republicans and could prove fatal to a party that needs support from Hispanic voters to win.

Hostility to immigration is one of the Trump campaign's most prominent themes. The billionaire reality TV star, who has disparaged Mexican immigrants as criminals, rapists, and drug dealers, promises to end birthright citizenship, stop Muslims from entering the country, triple the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, "humanely" deport II million unauthorized immigrants, and build a wall on our southern border at the Mexican government's expense.

Cruz likewise promises to "build a wall that works," "triple border security," and boost deportations. When Bill O'Reilly asked him whether he would "round up 12 million illegal aliens," the Texas senator replied, "Yes, we should deport them."

During the Republican presidential debate on January 28, Cruz slammed Rubio for getting elected to the Senate as an opponent of "amnesty" in 2010, then supporting a 2013 bill that would have allowed illegal immigrants who met certain conditions to become citizens. The Florida senator desperately tried to distance himself from that bill, saying "there's not going to be consensus on this issue until we enforce our immigration laws."

Cruz himself seemed to support some form of legalization in 2013, proposing what he described as a "middle ground" amendment to the immigration bill that would "allow for...