Published: February 22, 2016 9:16 pm
Todd J. Gillman



WASHINGTON –Ted Cruz said tonight that he would use federal immigration officers to round up and deport all 12 million people in the country illegally — a markedly tougher stance that he has struck in the past.

“Yes, we should deport them,” Cruz told Fox host Bill O’Reilly. “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.”

The toughening stance comes after a disappointing, if narrow, third place finish in South Carolina on Saturday, with immigration hardliner Donald Trump strengthening his grip on the race.

Cruz has long avoided specifics of what he would do with people in the country illegally. His immigration policy focuses on border security and enforcement of existing laws.

Just five weeks ago, he explicitly rejected the idea of a “deportation force” of the sort proposed by Trump, who has unabashedly called for the federal government to actively round up people in the country illegally.

“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,” Cruz told CNN’s Jake Tapper in Iowa.

On that point, Trump seemed to strike a harder line on illegal immigration, until tonight. Cruz boasts that he’s actually tougher, though, because Trump would let deportees eventually return to the United States, while he would bar them forever.

That’s the basis of his assertion that Trump — like Sen. Marco Rubio, who cau-authored the Gang of 8 immigration plan that included eventual citizenship for people in the country illegally — embraces “amnesty” while he does not.

Before tonight, Cruz has resisted saying that he would use federal assets to proactively search for people in the country illegally in order to deport them.

For years, he routinely ducked questions from journalists and from voters about exactly what he would do with people in the country illegally, insisting that question should be discussed only once the border is fully secure. He tipped his hand somewhat at a Senate hearing in early December, when he sparred with Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief Sarah Saldaña, pressing the former Dallas federal prosecutor over what he perceived to be the administration’s soft approach.

The key part of tonight’s exchange on Fox:

O’Reilly: Would you round up 12 million illegal aliens here and if so, how?

Cruz: Yes we should deport them. We should build a wall, we should triple the Border Patrol. Federal law requires that anyone here illegally that’s apprehended should be deported.

O’Reilly: Would you go look for them, though? Mr. Trump would look for them to get them out. Would you do that if you were president?

Cruz: Look, Bill, of course you would. 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.

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