Today’s big government finds running Amtrak too large a challenge, and Trump’s roundup would be about 94 times larger than the wartime internment of 117,000 persons of Japanese descent. But Trump wants America to think big. The big costs, in decades and dollars (hundreds of billions), of Trump’s project could be reduced if, say, the targets were required to sew yellow patches on their clothing to advertise their coming expulsion. There is precedent.

Birthright citizenship, established by the 14th Amendment and opposed by Trump and his emulators, accords with America’s natural-rights doctrine. Arguably, this policy is unwise. But is this an argument Republicans should foment in the toxic atmosphere Trump has created, an argument that would injure the next Republican nominee even more than Mitt Romney injured himself? Romney, who advocated making illegal immigrants’ lives so unpleasant they would “self-deport,” might be president if he had received 10 points more than his 27 percent of the Hispanic vote.

About 900,000 of America’s Hispanic citizens reach voting age each year. In 2012, less than half of eligible Hispanics voted, but Republicans have figured out how to increase Hispanic turnout.