Ben Carson Challenges Trump In Polls, Immigration Views

Ben Carson questioned the wisdom of Donald Trump’s immigration plan at a presidential campaign event on Tuesday. The two Republican candidates are leading the GOP field in the polls, and both are Washington outsiders with little or no political experience. But where some see Trump as a megalomaniac mogul, Carson hopes to assert himself as a neurosurgeon nerd. On Tuesday, the soft spoken doctor called Trump’s proposal to deport the 11.3 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally as impractical.

"It sounds really cool, you know, 'Let's just round them all up and send them back,'" Carson said during a campaign event in San Francisco on Tuesday, NBC reported. "People who say that have no idea what that would entail in terms of our legal system, the costs - forget about it."

Trump’s mass deportation plan is estimated to cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

Carson offered his own immigration proscriptions in 2014, advocating a crackdown not through deportation by ending immigration “carrots”: employment, health care, education, and “public support through welfare.”

“We must create a system that disincentivizes illegal immigration and upholds the rule of law while providing us with a steady stream of immigrants from other nations who will strengthen our society,” Carson wrote.

Trump leads the GOP pack with 30 percent, while Carson has surged to 18 percent, displacing Jeb Bush, according to a recent Monmouth University poll . Last week, Trump welcomed a challenge from Carson.

"I'm hoping for Ben to really hit me at some point, because I love to counterpunch," Trump said, according to Politico .

Despite the disagreement over massive deportation, Carson and Trump have significant overlap on many immigration priorities. Both candidates say that they want to:

• Expand the existing guest-worker visa program.*

• Require immigrants in the country illegally to leave the country, then apply for a worker visa, and then return to the U.S.

• Dismiss proposals for a pathway to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally.

• Completely “seal” the U.S.-Mexico border.

Trump and Carson do advocate different types of “walls” for the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump wants to build a physical wall. Carson says it should be a virtual barrier that uses existing technology like sensors and cameras.

But their immigration policy proposals have as many commonalities as differences. Like Trump, Carson hasn't treated immigration policy like brain surgery... in fact, his suggestions are even more vague. Both are Washington outsiders. Some are saying that they should team up.

Will Donald Trump throw a “counterpunch?” He hasn’t yet, but it’s not clear if that is out of respect for Carson, or a consequence of being too busy on Wednesday, rallying with his pals Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz.

*Carson hasn’t dismissed a pathway to citizenship whole-heartedly. In his book Amer­ica the Beau­ti­ful, Car­son questioned the wisdom of a worker-visa program that didn’t allow for citizenship.

“Is it mor­al for us, for ex­ample, to take ad­vant­age of cheap labor from il­leg­al im­mig­rants while deny­ing them cit­izen­ship? I’m sure you can tell from the way I phrased the ques­tion that I be­lieve we have taken the mor­al low road on the is­sue.”