Why is it so hard to figure out what Ted Cruz actually believes should be done about illegal immigration? When the Texas senator, through the help of radio host Laura Ingraham, zeroed in on Marco Rubio’s involvement drafting and supporting the Gang of 8’s comprehensive immigration reform plan in the Senate, he brought up for discussion his rival’s single biggest weakness in the Republican presidential primary. Rubio has not yet had a full reckoning over his support and subsequent departure from the Gang’s proposal, so Cruz, sensing both senators are on the rise in the primary, made a calculated move to strike.
The Rubio campaign, however, was ready to argue that supporting immigration reform wasn’t just Rubio’s weakness. Yes, Rubio had supported the 2013 bill, which would have created a pathway to citizenship for some illegals currently in the country while expanding the number of legal immigrants. But Cruz, Rubio told reporters, wasn’t all that different. Cruz had, in fact, proposed a path to legalization, said Rubio, whose campaign pointed to an amendment Cruz offered that would have barred anyone on the path to legalization under the Gang’s bill from ever receiving citizenship. The amendment (along with four other amendments Cruz proposed in the Judiciary committee, like one to beef up border security) failed, but not before Cruz made what sounds like a case for improving the Gang’s bill:
Cruz went on to say that failing to pass his amendment threatened to kill the immigration bill’s chance in the House of Representatives. “I don’t want immigration reform to fail,” Cruz said. “I want immigration reform to pass. And so I would urge people of good faith on both sides of the aisle, if the objective is to pass common sense immigration reform that secures the borders, that improves legal immigration, and that allows those who are here illegally to come in out of the shadows. Then we should look for areas of bipartisan agreement and compromise to come together. And this amendment, I believe, if this amendment were to pass, the chances of this bill passing into law would increase dramatically.”
The Cruz campaign is pushing back, emphasizing that the amendment wasn’t a brand-new proposal to create a path to legal status for illegal immigrants—that provision were already in the bill. Cruz was proposing that if the bill was going to legalize illegal immigrants, those legalized immigrants should not have an eventual path to citizenship. The campaign claims that the amendment, like the other four, were doomed to fail because they were considered poison pills by the Democrats in the Gang, led by Chuck Schumer. No path to citizenship, Schumer insisted, no immigration reform. Killing Cruz’s amendment proved that, says the campaign.
All of that’s technically true, but wasn’t his amendment a tacit endorsement of the idea of a path to legalization? After all, Cruz told Byron York of the Washington Examiner not long after his amendments failed that his objective “was not to kill immigration reform but to amend the Gang of Eight bill so that it actually solves the problem rather than making the problem worse.” But if Cruz knew his amendments were meant to draw lines in the sand and he’s not for legalization, why didn’t his amendment propose barring any illegal immigrants from legalized status? Cruz has built a reputation in the Senate as a policy maximalist, willing to push as far as possible out of principle. It doesn’t add up that he would pull a punch and not try to amend the bill to block most or all legalization, too.
The truth is, Cruz has never really said he opposes a path to legalization. He’s also never explicitly said he supports a path to legalization. What Cruz opposes, he and his spokespeople always say, is amnesty. What is amnesty? It’s not clear if that means “legalization” or “citizenship” to Cruz. (See update.)
Nor is it clear what Cruz’s own proposal on immigration is. His campaign won’t clarify whether he would support deportation of illegal immigrants after the border is secure, with a campaign source saying the situation can only be assessed after border security is in place.
The hit on Rubio for being a part of the Gang of 8 is a solid one, and perhaps a savvy one, from Cruz. But the Rubio campaign isn’t wrong, nor any less savvy, to highlight Cruz’s own vacillation on the issue of illegal immigration.
Update: Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler told NBC News Thursday that amnesty “is offering a pathway to citizenship or legalization for people who have broken the law.”
