Ted Cruz unveiled his immigration reform plan on the campaign trail Friday afternoon, positioning himself for a fight against Marco Rubio by moving in the direction of conservative immigration hawks and away from some of his own previous positions.
The Texas senator rolled out his plan onstage in Florida and criticized members of both parties for being “in complete harmony on amnesty,” which he argued hurts legal immigrants and working men and women.
“Enough talk, we’re going to solve this,” Cruz told the crowd. “The problem is political will.”
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His reforms include halting any increase in legal immigration so long as unemployment remains at an unacceptable level, suspending the issuance of H-1B visas for 180 days while an audit and investigation of the visa program is conducted, and ending birthright citizenship. Cruz’s plan also requires legal immigrants to certify that they will be economically self-sustaining.
The senator’s plan to dramatically reform America’s legal immigration system stands in stark contrast to his previous remarks. While Cruz wants to block any increase in legal immigration immediately, he told Rush Limbaugh in 2013 that “there is no more an enthusiastic advocate of legal immigration in the U.S. Senate than I am.”
And Cruz’s decision to tout the elimination of birthright citizenship on the presidential campaign trail comes a few years after he campaigned for the U.S. Senate on the idea that such an argument was mistaken.
“The 14th amendment provides for birthright citizenship. I’ve looked at the legal arguments against it and I will tell you as a Supreme Court litigator those arguments are not very good,” Cruz said on video in 2011. “As much as someone may dislike the policy of birthright citizenship, it’s in the U.S. Constitution. And I don’t like it when federal judges set aside the Constitution because their policy preferences are different and so my view, I think it’s a mistake for conservatives to be focusing on trying to fight what the Constitution says on birthright citizenship. I think we are far better off on securing the border.”
Cruz’s plan argues that he would increase border security by building a “wall that works” and he would restore the rule of law by ending President Obama’s “amnesty,” namely the executive actions taken by the president to shield illegal immigrants from deportations required by federal law. A Cruz administration would increase deportations, seek to end “sanctuary” policies of jurisdictions that harbor illegal immigrants, and triple the number of Border Patrol agents.
The Texas senator’s proposal comes one day after he and fellow GOP presidential candidate Marco Rubio bickered back-and-forth about their records on immigration. Earlier on Friday, the Florida senator sought to pile on Cruz at a campaign stop in Orlando.
“I’m puzzled and quite frankly surprised by Ted’s attacks, since Ted’s position on immigration is not much different than mine,” Rubio said before Cruz released his plan. “He is a supporter of legalizing people that are in this country illegally. If he’s changed that position, then he certainly has a right to change his position on that issue, but he should be clear about that.”
Cruz responded on Friday afternoon by chastising other GOP candidates who say one thing on Spanish-language networks and something else on other networks. His barb appeared directed at Rubio, and mirrored a claim promoted by Breitbart that Rubio told Univision he would maintain Obama’s amnesty programs. As a result, Cruz said every Republican candidate should be asked, “Would you maintain the lawless Obama amnesty programs or cancel them on the first day in office?”
The senators’ disagreement on immigration is unlikely to end anytime soon. Cruz’s decision to release his plan may be an attempt to shift the terms of the battle from looking at their records to examining their plans for the future. Rubio and Cruz are ranked first and second, respectively, in the Washington Examiner‘s newest GOP presidential power rankings.
