Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro deserves immense credit for doing what the national news media has never done when it comes to immigration: Get the party's leaders on the record on wanting open borders.

The former Housing and Urban Development secretary at the debate on Wednesday asked over and over again that his other nine peers on stage pledge to repeal a law that makes it a criminal act to cross in to the country illegally.

Other than Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, all of them flailed. Ryan was the only one to say that sure, anyone from anywhere wanting in the country should waltz right in. The one caveat: If the foreigner commits a crime while they're here, they're prosecuted.

Well, yes, that's the same standard for every American citizen. But the way our immigration system is supposed to work in theory is that we prevent any potential criminals from getting here and committing more crime.

Under Ryan and Castro's plan, we'd wait for the foreigner to murder someone or sell some drugs before we lock them up.

The other candidates declined to answer directly as to whether they were interested in Castro's approach. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said she would "look" at Castro's plan, as though it were a complicated math problem.

The question is: Should it be illegal to cross in to the U.S. without authorization? It's essentially the mainstream Democratic position that no, it shouldn't be illegal. They just don't like saying it outright, not yet anyway.

God bless Julián Castro for trying to push the rest of them out in the open.