Break out the cattle cars. Donald Trump calls for mass deportation

Break out the barbed wire and cattle cars. Donald Trump has finally explained what he would do with the estimated 11.5 million people who are in this country illegally.

In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Trump said he'd deport every last one of them. Then he'd set up an expedited process so that the "good ones" could return.

Left unsaid was precisely how Trump would execute his mass deportation policy.

"We will find them, we will get them out," Trump told CNN's Dana Bash. "It's feasible if you know how to manage. Politicians don't know how to manage."

Fortunately, Trump says he does know how to manage. He's just not yet telling us.

So, will the deportation cops burst into people's homes, Mr. T? Will they nab people as they walk about on the streets if they look like they might be here illegally? (Perhaps you could hire on Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio as an adviser to explain what illegal immigrants look like.)

Will they scour the schools for students who were brought here illegally when they were children?

For that matter, who will be in charge of the children who are American citizens once they've been ripped from the arms of their mothers who are here illegally?

And when the estimated 11.5 million undocumented immigrants have been rounded up, where will you put them while they wait potentially years for their deportation hearings?

Or would we simply forgo pesky things like civil rights and court hearings and due process?

Then there's the small matter of how to pay for this mass deportation plan.

The Center for American Progress in 2010 estimated that it would cost more than $200 billion to find, arrest, detain, legally process and deport the then-10.8 million undocumented immigrants – assuming you could find them.

It put the cost at about $23,482 per person.

Considering that the Department of Homeland Security's budget is only $60 billion, we might need to bump that up a bit.

Trump, by the way, continues to lead other Republican presidential favorites in polls, 2-1. Every time he opens his mouth, his approval ratings ratchet up.

Give the guycredit, though. At least he's being honest about what he wants to do..

With the exception of Arizona's own recalled Senate President Russell Pearce, I haven't heard anybody call for mass deportations. ("We know what we need to do," Pearce said in 2006. "In 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower put together a task force called 'Operation Wetback.' He removed, in less than a year, 1.3 million illegal aliens. They must be deported.")

Trump, in raising the issue, may be doing America a favor as we look to all of our would-be presidents to at long last explain to us exactly what they would do about the 11.5 million people living in the shadows.

The Republicans' plan certainly doesn't seem to be legalization. So is it deportation?

Trump may yet make the candidates own up to a plan.

Or at least, own up to the fact that they don't have one.