Results 1 to 3 of 3

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

  1. #1
    Administrator ALIPAC's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2004
    Location
    Gheen, Minnesota, United States
    Posts
    67,706

    Cruz Tries to Claim the Middle Ground on Amnesty for illegal immigrants

    The Texas Tribune

    Cruz Tries to Claim the Middle Ground on Immigration

    Doug Young for The Texas Tribune
    Senator Ted Cruz, left, spoke about immigration at the Anzalduas International Bridge in Mission this month.

    By JAY ROOT and JULIÁN AGUILAR

    Published: September 12, 2013


    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Google+
    • Save
    • Email
    • Share
    • Print
    • Reprints



    When it comes to immigration reform, Senator Ted Cruz has made it abundantly clear what he opposes: giving citizenship to people who broke the law to come here.




    What has not been as evident is what he supports: legal status for millions of people here already, while making it easier for immigrants to come here through the front door.
    “I have said many times that I want to see common-sense immigration reform pass,” he said. “I think most Americans want to see the problem fixed.”
    But for Mr. Cruz, a Tea Party favorite who represents a state with rapidly changing demographics, finding common ground will not be easy. Many of the bedrock Tea Party supporters who helped elect him are immigration hard-liners who object to even the slightest nod toward amnesty, a loaded word that generally means providing an avenue for legal residency to people who entered the United States illegally. Such conservatives tend to favor mass deportation, or “self-deportation,” for the millions of undocumented immigrants.
    On the other hand, Hispanics in Texas are projected to eclipse the white population sometime in the next decade, and Mr. Cruz cannot afford to alienate large numbers of Latino voters with a strident anti-immigrant tone and a hard-line legislative approach. Major business interests also are supporting a path to citizenship.
    What Mr. Cruz has tried to articulate in both word and deed is a middle ground. It got no support from Democrats in Washington, but it goes further than many on the far right want to go by offering leniency to undocumented immigrants here already: A path to legal status, but not to citizenship. A green card with no right to naturalization.
    Immigration-reform legislation from the Senate’s so-called Gang of Eight passed that chamber in June and includes a 13-year path to citizenship. Mr. Cruz pushed unsuccessfully for amendments that would have, among other things, eliminated the citizenship component.
    Asked about what to do with the people here illegally, however, he stressed that he had never tried to undo the goal of allowing them to stay.
    “The amendment that I introduced removed the path to citizenship, but it did not change the underlying work permit from the Gang of Eight,” he said during a recent visit to El Paso. Mr. Cruz also noted that he had not called for deportation or, as Mitt Romney famously advocated, self-deportation.
    Mr. Cruz said recent polling indicated that people outside Washington support some reform, including legal status without citizenship. He said he was against naturalization because it rewarded lawbreakers and was unfair to legal immigrants. It also perpetuates illegal crossings, he added.
    Besides barring citizenship while instituting some level of legalization for those here already, Mr. Cruz has proposed increasing the number of green cards awarded annually, to 1.35 million from 675,000. He also wants to eliminate the per-country limit that he said left applicants from countries like Mexico, China and India hamstrung when they tried to gain legal entry to this country.
    Mr. Cruz said the Obama administration and partisan Democrats would not yield on the citizenship requirement, which they know would kill the entire effort because of a lack of support in the House. The result, he said, will be a future campaign tool by which Democrats can blame Republicans for failing to overhaul immigration.
    “If your objective is actually to pass a bill insisting on a path to citizenship, it is in both intent and effect a poison pill,” he said, adding that he thinks many of the immigration groups working on the issue are “being taken advantage of.”
    Democrats say that Mr. Cruz is not in line with what most Americans favor.
    “The majority of Americans support a path to earned citizenship for people who have long been part of our communities — pass a background check, pay a fee and pledge allegiance to our flag,” said United States Representative Pete Gallego, Democrat of Alpine.
    “With so many people and groups in favor of immigration reform, common sense would dictate that those blocking reform are the ones out of the mainstream.”
    Mr. Cruz has said the stalemate is denying help to farmers and ranchers who “have a real need for labor resources.”
    On that score, he finds himself out of step with hard-liners who do not believe immigrant laborers are needed.
    Ira Mehlman, a national spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates increased border security and limited immigration, opposes expanding the pool of legal workers the way Mr. Cruz proposes. And citizenship or not, he added, legal status still means immigrants take resources from citizens already here.
    "We’re also opposed to the expansion of guest-worker programs,” he said. “There is no evidence of a worker shortage."
    Instead the group wants tougher internal enforcement so illegal immigrants adhere to what he calls "voluntary compliance," or self-deportation. Likewise, the Texas Tea Party activist JoAnn Fleming said she opposed allowing illegal immigrants to get “in line ahead of people who have tried to do it the right way.”
    Mr. Cruz routinely cites his own history as inspiration for his views on immigration. His father, Rafael Cruz, a North Texas pastor and Tea Party favorite in his own right, fled Cuba and worked as a dishwasher before attending the University of Texas at Austin on a student visa, and he is now “living the American dream,” Ted Cruz says.
    But critics of Mr. Cruz argue that Cubans are awarded what some today would call amnesty. Federal law allows Cubans to adjust their legal status a year after arriving. Mr. Cruz said American refugee law had always been sympathetic to those in his father’s situation, even before Fidel Castro took hold of the island.
    “U.S. immigration law, for many decades, has included asylum and refugee status for those who have credible fears of persecution and oppression,” he said. Cuba poses a different scenario from other countries, he said, because United States immigration law has recognized for decades that there is a qualitative difference between fleeing political persecution and fleeing poverty.
    Mexico, he said, is a great country, although its drug violence and poverty are horrific, and Mexicans with a credible fear of persecution should apply for asylum. But the problem is not as widespread there, he said.
    “It is not the case that throughout the country of Mexico, everyone there has a credible fear of persecution,” he said. “Our laws allow that to be made on a case-by-case basis.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/13/us...ion.html?_r=1&
    Last edited by ALIPAC; 04-28-2014 at 05:37 PM.
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

  2. #2
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2012
    Posts
    1,201
    There is no so called "middle ground" on amnesty. This country has huge social and economic problems because hoards of foreigners have contemptuously, illegally sneaked across the border. The problems we have are because they are here illegally and the obvious way to fix the problem is to make them not be here. Any politician who does not unequivocally say that "illegal aliens must go home--period" is not worthy of our support. The "changing demographics" is a lie and a fraud. If illegal aliens were sent back home, the Hispanic population would probably drop by half, or more. So much for the "inevitable" demographic shift to Hispanics.

    The immigration disaster is a manufactured crisis because of intentional government policies to force an artificial transform of the very composition of our society. It is inherently racists because it overwhelmingly benefits one racial group (Hispanics) and is overwhelmingly unfavorable to another racial group, Caucasians.

    Like Rand Paul, Marko Rubio and others Mr. Cruz doesn't get to pretend that he is a conservative and vacillate on the illegal alien crisis. Either he insists that "ILLEGAL ALIENS, GO HOME" or he is not a conservative. Amnesty will destroy country, conservatism, everything. There is no good amnesty. There is an easy way out; it is just not the politically advantageous way out. Zuckerberg and his billionaire pals will be rebuffed in their attempt to play rulers of the world.

    It's hard patriots. History will ignore your sacrifices, and if we lose, we will be made the villains. But when your family sees a photograph of you, they will look upon it with pride and love for a good and honorable person. They will know how hard you tried, and how honorable you were. Your conscience will give you peace. And God will bless you.
    Last edited by csarbww; 04-28-2014 at 07:17 PM.

  3. #3
    Senior Member oldguy's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Texas
    Posts
    3,208
    It's called the politicians walk, too frightened to take a stand they walk down the center line but the fact is during the pass 20 years liberal media continues to pull the center line left. I honestly don't believe another true conservative can be elected to the White house, perhaps a total collapse of our society would bring that about but other wise we will have progressives in the GOP as front runners,Bush, Romney, Huckabee, like it or not the trend is left.
    I'm old with many opinions few solutions.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •