Thread: Ted Cruz 'Unequivocally' Opposes Legalizing Undocumented Immigrants

Hours after a fiery exchange during Tuesday's Republican presidential debate with Marco Rubio on immigration, Ted Cruz's campaign said definitively that the Texas senator opposes any path to legalization for people in the U.S. illegally.

"I want to make this super clear, so put me on the record on this. Senator Cruz unequivocally—unequivocally—does not support legalization," Chad Sweet, Cruz's campaign chairman, told reporters Tuesday in Las Vegas after the Republican presidential debate. "His plan is attrition through enforcement... He's a champion of legal immigration, but he's also unabashedly a champion of border security."

It is the first time the Texas senator has closed the door on legal status for undocumented immigrants, a position that could help him with immigration-wary conservatives in a Republican primary, but which poses dangers in a general election. Cruz has strongly opposed a path to citizenship for years, but had not definitively opposed a lesser form of legal status down the road, and dodged recently when asked.

Tuesday's debate featured a testy back-and-forth in which Cruz attacked Rubio's co-authorship and vote in 2013 for bipartisan immigration reform with a path to citizenship. "There was a battle over amnesty and some chose, like Senator Rubio to stand with Barack Obama and Chuck Schumer and support a massive amnesty plan," said the Texan, who voted against the legislation. Rubio retorted, "Ted, you support legalizing people who are in this country illegally," a reference to an amendment Cruz offered to the 2013 bill that stripped out the citizenship component but kept the legal status and work permits for undocumented people.

The debate fireworks have continued throughout the week, with the two 44-year-old Cuban American senators sparring over the issue on the campaign trail, while a debate between their supporters over what Cruz really meant with his amendment raged in the media.

"I introduced an amendment that made anyone here illegally permanently ineligible for citizenship. That amendment called their bluff because it revealed that the proponents of the 'gang of eight' were being hypocrites," Cruz told reporters in Las Vegas.

In 2013, Cruz said that, under his amendment, undocumented immigrants "would still be eligible for legal status ... so that they are out of the shadows, which the proponents of this bill repeatedly point to as their principal objective, to provide a legal status for those who are here illegally to be out of the shadows. This amendment would allow that to happen, but what it would do is remove the pathway to citizenship so that there are real consequences that respect the rule of law."

Rubio spokesman Joe Pounder hit back in an e-mail to reporters on Thursday, saying that "the only one who might have gotten bluffed by Senator Cruz in 2013 was Senator Cruz in 2015," and added that the Texas senator is "[p]roving yet again that he will say anything for political gain." On the campaign trail, Rubio demanded that Cruz declare his position on how to deal with the estimated 11 million people in the country illegally.

Wednesday on Fox News, Cruz was grilled and argued that "the fact that I introduced an amendment to remove part of the gang of eight bill doesn't mean I support the rest of the gang of eight bill." According to lawmakers and aides who had a front row seat to the 2013 debate, Cruz's move featured a bit of parliamentary trickery. His amendment eliminated the bill's citizenship component without adding any legal status. At the time, Cruz's remarks defending the amendment left open the impression that he was in favor of legalization; the Rubio campaign is now pouncing on those remarks to say their positions are similar. Republican opponents of the immigration bill, including leading restrictionist Senator Jeff Sessions, voted for the Cruz amendment as it was deemed by Republicans and Democrats as a "poison pill" to kill it.

Sessions' spokesman Stephen Miller called it an "extremely untenable interpretation" to say that supporting Cruz's amendment amounts to supporting legal status.

Representative Steve King, an outspoken immigration hawk who has endorsed Cruz, said Thursday on MSNBC that on the amendment, "the border security people voted with Ted Cruz, and the pro-amnesty people voted with Marco Rubio." He continued, "At no point did Ted Cruz indicate that he was going to vote for this bill."

Members of the 2013 "gang of eight," on the other hand, praise Rubio on immigration.

"I think that Senator Rubio has a very good understanding of the issue," Senator John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, told Bloomberg Politics. "And I don't pay that much attention to Senator Cruz, to tell you the truth."

Senator Jeff Flake said he's optimistic that Rubio, if elected president, would pursue immigration reform based on the principles of the gang of eight bill. "I do think that we will have meaningful immigration reform if he's president. As a party we have to have it. As a country we have to have it," the Arizona Republican said.

Flake said Rubio's salesmanship and work on the 2013 bill was crucial to steering the bill through the Senate—it passed 68 to 32 in June 2013. "He was more important than the rest of us combined," Flake said, "in terms of getting the bill passed." The legislation subsequently died in the House, and four months later Rubio abandoned the idea of a comprehensive immigration overhaul, calling for a sequential approach.
—With assistance from Kevin Cirilli in Las Vegas

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-12-17/ted-cruz-unequivocally-opposes-legalizing-undocumented-immigrants

Date of the above article is December 17, 2015. Two days after Cruz was cornered on the issue by Rubio during the Tuesday night Fifth GOP Debate. MW, your link doesn't work, so I posted it here for you. You might want to edit and put a carriage return after it so it activates. That might be the problem.

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/ar...ted-immigrants

Also:

Sessions' spokesman Stephen Miller called it an "extremely untenable interpretation" to say that supporting Cruz's amendment amounts to supporting legal status.

I think I understand now why Sessions is speaking out on this. He voted for the Cruz Amendment, and doesn't want to be lumped in with Cruz on supporting legalization by association with the Cruz Amendment and Cruz's testimony and Cruz statements about it. No one that I've heard has said that someone who voted for the Cruz amendment supported legalization, no one else has even been discussed. All Rubio or anyone else has said is that Ted Cruz supported legalization because that's what Ted Cruz said under oath in the hearings and what he said to the Texas Tribune and MSNBC and so forth, confirming his positions were still consistent with the Trib article so says his staff this year.

The issue is when candidates who are pro-legalization for years but then when it's not politically expedient, quickly change their mind and deny their prior positions, do we still support them or decide they can't be trusted?

I was raised on the belief that you can't expect redemption until you've confessed and repented. Lying and denying doesn't work when in a flustered cornered moment in front of 18 million voters during a Republican debate, you forget that you were caught on tape and in print clearing supporting what you just denied.

Judy wrote:

I think I understand now why Sessions is speaking out on this. He voted for the Cruz Amendment, and doesn't want to be lumped in with Cruz on supporting legalization by association with the Cruz Amendment and Cruz's testimony and Cruz statements about it.

Wow, are you seriously saying Sen. Jeff Sessions is an amnesty supporter? That is just utterly ludicrous! Anyone that has followed Sen. Sessions over the years as I have knows that is absolutely not true. We've had no better friend in the U.S. Congress. Of course he supported Cruz's Amendment because it removed a path to citizenship for illegal aliens. Furthermore, the Amendment was designed to kill the gang of eight bill, Sen. Sessions has even said as much. Are you going to call him a liar too?

I figured you be glad that Cruz has come out and said he "unequivocally opposes legalizing undocumented immigrants." Hmm, guess not.

Originally Posted by MW

Judy wrote:



Wow, are you seriously saying Sen. Jeff Sessions is an amnesty supporter? That is just utterly ludicrous! Anyone that has followed Sen. Sessions over the years as I have knows that is absolutely not true. We've had no better friend in the U.S. Congress. Of course he supported Cruz's Amendment because it removed a path to citizenship for illegal aliens. Furthermore, the Amendment was designed to kill the gang of eight bill, Sen. Sessions has even said as much. Are you going to call him a liar too?

I figured you be glad that Cruz has come out and said he "unequivocally opposes legalizing undocumented immigrants." Hmm, guess not.

No, I'm not saying that. When I say something, it's usually very clear. I adore Jeff Sessions so why you post ridiculous crap like this is beyond me. In other threads you tried to accuse me of saying Jeff Sessions was lying when what I said was Ted Cruz lied in the debate.

And you can use 10 point font if you like, it doesn't change the fact that it was Ted Cruz who lied in the debate about his own support caught on tape and by the press over a period of years, for legalization, not Jeff Sessions.

What I couldn't understand is why Jeff Sessions wanted to get involved in this, and that article exposed why, he doesn't want guilt by association with Cruz on legalization, simply because he voted for the Cruz Amendment. It was unnecessary because no one was accusing him or anyone else who voted for the amendment of being for legalization.

Cruz is being accused of it because in his own words while testifying under oath in Senate hearings, Cruz said he supported legalization as proposed in the Gang of Eight Bill, and was very specific in his statements that he supported legalization to LPR status (green card, legal permanent stats) for illegal aliens, but didn't think it was fair to legal immigrants to give legalized illegal aliens citizenship paths.

I believe Sessions came out and spoke publicly about this because he wanted it to be clear to his own voters that he never in anyway supported legal status for illegal aliens, simply because he voted for the Cruz Amendment to remove citizenship from the Gang of Eight bill.

I am very glad Cruz has come out with this statement, because this could mean we have another US Senator publicly committed to our cause in the US Senate for at least 2 more years, which is where Ted Cruz needs to remain and do his job.

Judy wrote:

No, I'm not saying that. When I say something, it's usually very clear. I adore Jeff Sessions so why you post ridiculous crap like this is beyond me. In other threads you tried to accuse me of saying Jeff Sessions was lying when what I said was Ted Cruz lied in the debate.

Here is what you said:

I think I understand now why Sessions is speaking out on this. He voted for the Cruz Amendment, and doesn't want to be lumped in with Cruz on supporting legalization by association with the Cruz Amendment and Cruz's testimony and Cruz statements about it.

Why would anyone lump Sessions to amnesty for speaking the truth about Cruz's Amendment? Cruz's Amendment was designed as a "poison pill" to kill the entire gang of eight amnesty bill, it was not to promote amnesty and it didn't include anything that wasn't already in the bill. IMO, you did imply that Sen. Sessions didn't want to be linked to amnesty, which could be taken to mean he did. If not that, are you implying that he lied to protect himself from what you consider an amnesty Amendment? Either way, it sounds like a hit on Sessions to me.

Originally Posted by MW

Why would anyone lump Sessions to amnesty for speaking the truth about Cruz's Amendment? Cruz's Amendment was designed as a "poison pill" to kill the entire gang of eight amnesty bill, it was not to promote amnesty and it didn't include anything that wasn't already in the bill. IMO, you did imply that Sen. Sessions didn't want to be linked to amnesty, which could be taken to mean he did. If not that, are you implying that he lied to protect himself from what you consider an amnesty Amendment? Either way, it sounds like a hit on Sessions to me.

Whatever.