Is Donald Trump's immigration plan realistic?

Reaction from the 'Special Report' All-Star panel

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," August 17, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN KILMEADE, "FOX & FRIENDS" CO-HOST: The automatic citizenship, where do you stand on is that? If a child is born from illegal immigrant parents, they become citizens right now.

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, of course, you know, our constitution has said over the course of time that that's the case. What I have said recently is that's got to be something that is discussed in the course of an entire reform package. Everything should be on the table to be discussed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DOUG MCKELWAY, GUEST ANCHOR: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and presidential candidate reacting as are virtually all the GOP candidates to Donald Trump's first concrete proposal, that regarding congratulation. Trump always setting the agenda these days, it seems.

He proposes a wall across the U.S.-Mexican border as you heard. Immigration laws must be fully enforced, and e-verify to determine status. No more anchor babies, and a lot more in it.

Also comes in the aftermath of a Fox poll just yesterday which is sort of take us -- allowed us to take a look at how things are gelling post Fox News debate. And here is where it stands right now. We have got Trump at the lead of the pack with 25 percent. He has only dropped one percent in the past couple weeks. Carson making tremendous gains there at 12 percent, Cruz 10 percent, also up. Bush dropping just a little bit, and on and on now.

But let's take a snapshot of the race right now, Charles. What do you make of it? Any important changes?

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Well, just add one thing in the Trump immigration plan is to deport the illegal aliens en masse. And then I think he adds he would let the good ones back. I'm not sure how that works, but that's a lot more even radical than the Romney plan of self-deportation. You squeeze them on jobs and they deport themselves. So that is sort of the most startling element of his immigration plan, and I doubt there will be a lot of other Republicans who sign on to it.

As for the polls, it looks to me as he if he has a very loyal constituency that's going to stick with him. As we saw, there is almost no change, slight drop, but a quarter of the electorate. I think it's anywhere from a fifth to a quarter, and he will hang on to it the way Ron Paul had a very strong constituency, the way the others have in the past. And I think that stays with him.

It is interesting that in that same poll, 31 percent said he had the worst performance of the debate, and these are the Republicans who are answering and gave him the number one spot overall. So that's a high number. And 19 percent said he won. That's a minus 13 percent, which was the largest negative of people who watched the debate. So I think that probably is going to affect his standing, and it puts kind of a ceiling on his support.

MCKELWAY: Juan, there is another interesting component to the FOX News poll yesterday, and it's hypothetical matchups with Hillary Clinton among the GOP candidates. Jeb Bush 44 percent, Hillary 42 percent. He is he up by two. Marco Rubio 46 percent, Hillary 44 percent, again, up by two. Carly Fiorina 40 percent, Hillary 47 percent. What a gain Fiorina has made there. But here is the interesting thing to me -- Trump 42 percent, Hillary 47 percent. Not a great showing against Hillary.

JUAN WILLIAMS, THE HILL: No. And actually that's improvement for Trump. It was even worse before. I think what's interesting out of these polls is, one, that you finally have some Republicans who are besting her nationally. Previously that wasn't the case. And for Bush that really is a significant moment.

On the other hand for Bush, he is down among Republicans in those polls that you just displayed, Doug. He suffered a loss. Trump is about even, the big winner as you can see and as you have described it is Ben Carson, who doubled his level of support to go up. So you have people like that. Ted Cruz is up four points, again, a little bit of a surprise sense you had Trump basically staying the same. And the thought is that once Trump's support starts to deteriorate, most of it would migrate toward Ted Cruz. But here is Cruz gaining on his own.

And on the Democratic side, what was surprising to me is that Hillary Clinton actually enlarged her lead in this poll over Bernie Sanders.

MCKELWAY: What do you make of it, Yochi?

YOCHI DREAZEN, FOREIGN POLICY: What I find interesting is that the feeling for so long had ben that this is just a lark, that at some point the Trump balloon would burst and he would start floating down to earth. And we're not seeing it. What you are not seeing it he is actually building infrastructure in Iowa and New Hampshire, that he is he is trying to win. And I think he had been dismissed for so long as just somebody doing this for fun, that he was just a joke and this TV host. But now it looks like he is seriously campaigning. Whatever you make of these plans, and I agree of Charles, the idea of deporting 12 million people is radical. But he's beginning to put out proposals. He's building infrastructure. This is not looking like somebody who is just in this for a joke.

MCKELWAY: At what point do the well-entrenched candidates, those with the good infrastructure, the good ground game, begin to see some advantage.

WILLIAMS: Well, they have money. And the money builds infrastructure. And Trump right now is relying on his own money. Apparently he is building infrastructure, as you were saying, Yochi, in Iowa. But not so much that you then go south, South Carolina and through those -- key stretch there that will come very quickly. So that's where the entrenched candidates have a big advantage. And the biggest advantage of course is to Jeb Bush.

MCKELWAY: Charles, do you agree with that?

KRAUTHAMMER: Look, if you are in a field of 17 and you land a helicopter at an Iowa state fair and you take kids on the rides -- I mean, this is showmanship of the highest order. So you are going to command an audience. You are going to command the media. You are going to command everything. In a field of 17, you get 20 percent, 25 percent, you are in the lead by a lot. Once that whittles down, it's going to be different, because that's not going to be a plurality. That will not be a lead. And the question is, can he expand beyond that? And we will see.

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