By Todd J. Gillman
dallasnews.com
2:26 pm on September 9, 2014


Sen. Ted Cruz criticizes President Obama on immigration policy on Tuesday at a news conference on Capitol Hill with Reps. John Carter, R-Round Rock (far left) and Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio. Behind Cruz is Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala. (AP/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON– Sen. Ted Cruz led a chorus of conservatives Tuesday denouncing President Barack Obama both for planning to grant “amnesty” to 5 million or more people in the country illegally, and for delaying any such orders until after the November elections.

“President Obama has decided this election will be a referendum on amnesty,” Cruz asserted. “We cannot solve this crisis at the border until we end President Obama’s amnesty.”

The blistering attack from the right came even as the White House faced fierce pushback from immigration advocates dismayed by Obama’s decision Saturday to put any immigration-related executive action on hold for at least two more months.

Pro-immigrant groups feel betrayed, and many fear that Obama will never fulfill his promise to step into a vacuum left by congressional stalemate.

Cruz likewise questioned Obama’s resolve, even as he warned that the president cannot be trusted to abandon his pro-immigrant agenda.

“I understand the immigration groups that, when they hear a promise from the president, they have reason to doubt it,” Cruz said. “It’s the same reason abroad that both our allies and our enemies have reason to doubt the president’s resolve. When you don’t follow through on what you say, that causes people to call into question what you say.”

He cited promises on Obamacare – that people who like their insurance or doctor could keep them – as examples of falsehoods that undermine Obama’s trustworthiness.

But he said, Congress must preclude any presidential action that would let millions of immigrants stay in the country after arriving without permission – action, he warned, that would serve as a “magnet” for millions more in the future.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, joining Cruz at a news conference at the Capitol, asserted that Obama had delayed executive action because “he is afraid of the American people…. The president himself knows it is not popular.”

Some Senate Democrats seeking reelection in November had feared backlash if Obama used his authority to delay deportations or otherwise alter immigration policy. At a Rose Garden appearance in late June, Obama had vowed to do just that by the end of summer, to circumvent House Republicans who had blocked an immigration overhaul.

Cruz and others seeking to repeal DACA demanded support from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and especially, other Democrats who pressured Obama to hold off.

“You’ve got Democratic senators home in their states saying `I’m opposed to amnesty,’ and yet they are complicit in President Obama’s amnesty,” Cruz said. “If any red state Democrat is truly opposed to amnesty, he or she should be standing up here with us.”

Cruz is demanding a Senate vote on a bill that would freeze the executive order Obama issued in June 2012 that shielded from deportation people who immigrated illegally at a young age. Republicans blame the “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” program for the surge of young Central American migrants in the past year.

The GOP-run House voted to end DACA before Congress went on summer recess. Senate Democrats refuse to put it to a vote. Cruz wants it attached to any short-term spending measure that would keep the federal government open past the end of this month.

This time last year, budget wrangling led to a weeks-long government shutdown. Cruz was at the center of that.

On Tuesday, he wouldn’t say if he would go that far with the demand to end DACA. But he said, “we should use any and all means necessary to prevent the president from illegally granting amnesty.”

Cruz was joined by Sens. Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Mike Lee of Utah, and a number of House Republicans, including several Texans: Smith and Reps. Pete Olson of Sugar Land, John Carter of Round Rock, Roger Williams of Austin, and Louie Gohmert of Tyler.

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