Sen. Ted Cruz insists he’ll deport 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. if elected president, but won’t create a special force to do it.
Cruz’s opponent Donald Trump has said he would create a deportation force that will go from “door-to-door” and remove all of the illegal immigrants from the country. Pressed by CNN’s Jake Tapper over whether he would do the same, Cruz said there are already agencies to do that.
“We have a door-to-door force, it’s called ICE and border patrol,” the Texas Republican said.
While Trump has lately been attacking Cruz on the campaign trail in Iowa, where he’s trailing the senator, the two men have both backed stricter immigration policies than their opponents.
They have both vowed to remove all of the country’s illegal immigrants, although even conservative policy experts acknowledge that would cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Other Republican candidates have promised to beef up illegal immigration efforts, but have stopped short of promising full deportation.
Pressed by Tapper to explain how he would remove an estimated 11 million people currently living in the country illegally, Cruz pointed to an 11-page immigration plan released by his campaign that proposes putting in place a stronger e-verify system, securing the border and creating stronger oversight of exit visas.
But Cruz didn’t explain how he’d ensure everyone already here gets removed, and at one point accused Tapper of playing a “media game” by pressing him on the question.
“We don’t have a system that knocks on every door in America, we don’t live in a police state,” Cruz said. “How do we catch people? We catch them through things like e-verify.”
