Ted Cruz is trying to position himself as tougher on immigration than Donald Trump in order to get voters to abandon Trump and vote for him. But if you look past the rhetoric and into the actions he has taken, that too, is a lie. In 2013, when Marco Rubio was pushing for open borders, Ted Cruz, mindful that Marco could be running against him for president in a rfew years, tried to out Rubio on immigration.
Paul Bedard of the Washington Examiner had this to say:
“Plans pushed by GOP presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz under the immigration reform debate in 2013 that would have jumped the number of immigrants, including those from Muslim nations, were raised by the Trump campaign Tuesday. Under the Cruz plan, yearly legal immigration would have gone from 740,000 to 1,675,000. He said [subsequently] his idea was to actually help kill the bill not boost the numbers.”
When the terrorists struck Paris, Donald Trump called for closing the border to Muslims until we could find a way to confirm they were not Islamic extremists bent on killing ads many Americans as possible. Cruz disagreed with him although he did not criticize Trump at the time, he did say Trump’s move would be unconstitutional.
Cruz’s supporters like to say that Cruz is a constitutional scholar, but even first-year constitutional law students know that the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 allowed US presidents to ban certain immigrants from coming to the United States. Truman used the act to prevent citizens from Axis Powers from coming to America was challenged by the ACLU in 1980, when Carter banned Iranians and certain sects of Muslims from entering the United States. The ACLU argued their case on 1st Amendment grounds, which the Supreme Court dismissed, allowing the ban to stand.
What did Cruz say about the Gang of Eight Bill?:
The best aspect of the so-called Gang of Eight bill is the reform that is found concerning legal immigration. I think it makes some positive steps with regard to legal immigration, but I don’t think it goes nearly far enough… if we want to improve high-skilled innovation in my view we should not do so by half measures. We should do so with a significant step that materially improves the status quo, and for that reason I’ve introduced this amendment to increase the cap by five hundred percent.
So next time you hear Ted Cruz talk tough on immigration, remember this and realize he’s lying. Also, remember that although he now says he will round up current illegals and deport them, he didn’t take that stand until after he got grief for saying he would never do that:
“No, I don’t intend to send jackboots to knock on your door and every door in America. That’s not how we enforce the law for any crime.”
Six weeks later, he said:
“Yes, we should deport them. That’s what ICE exists for. We have law enforcement that looks for people who are violating the laws, that apprehends them and deports them.”
When the flip flop was pointed out, Cruz’s campaign put out the following statement:
“There’s no change here. Cruz has been very clear: People who are here illegally should be deported. That is the law today. Period. They broke the law, they face the consequence. ICE exists for that purpose and they should continue to do their job. And on top of that, any law enforcement that encounters those here illegally should follow the law and deport them.”
So, who are you going to believe? Cruz or your lying ears?