Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are backpedaling furiously as they try to outmaneuver each other on immigration. Rubio co-authored a comprehensive 2013 Senate bill that provided a path to citizenship to immigrants in the country illegally.
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Cruz on Thursday went after Rubio on The Laura Ingraham Show, taking his first direct shot at the Florida senator.
“The Democrats are laughing, because if Republicans join Democrats as the party of amnesty, we will lose”, said Cruz, a hero of the conservative Tea Party movement.
I will say for those of us who believe people ought to come to this country legally and we should enforce the law, we’re exhausted of being told, it’s anti-immigrant.
Rubio stumped for that 2013 bill – a compromise between conservatives eager to secure the border and liberals set on a path to citizenship for the undocumented – which he helped negotiate before later backing away from it.
We chose to research Cruz’s role in the death of Rubio’s bill, and we’ll explain the problems with labeling it as “amnesty”. “In fact, when the Senate bill was proposed, he proposed giving them work permits”. Cruz has consistently pointed to the pathway to citizenship-not legal status in general, but citizenship specifically-as the reason he opposed the 2013 bill that Rubio supported; in his assessment, the pathway to citizenship would be “amnesty”. And they see their frustration with immigration policy as not only an effective way of rallying supporters, but also a symbol of all that’s wrong with government and Washington. He wanted a 500% increase in the number of H-1B visas. Every one of those candidates think it should be them, and they can give you every reason why it shouldnt be Rubio. “I mean, idiots”, said another.
The former Florida governor says Obama was “a gifted” candidate who “had absolutely nothing in his background that would suggest that he could make a tough decision”.
His 11-page plan distributed Friday, however, said nothing about what he would do with the 11 million undocumented immigrants now in the United States, a topic he has repeatedly refused to broach during the 2016 race. That video was posted by a brand new YouTube account called “Hypo-Cruz”.
Cruz’s comment on Fox News was the beginning of a two-week offensive telegraphing how he would fight Rubio for conservative votes, should the Republican race barrel into a match-up between the two. He was swiftly taken to task by Ohio Gov. John Kasich. “Just like we can’t have a GOP nominee who supports Obamacare, we can’t have a GOP nominee who supports amnesty”.
Republican presidential rivals Sens.
“First of all, it’s important to understand on the Senate Judiciary Committee, I was leading the fight along with Jeff Sessions to defeat this bill, the “Gang of Eight” bill and as a result, I was introducing a whole series of amendments in part to demonstrate the hypocrisy of the Democrats”, Cruz said. “On the immigration front, as I said, 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 in a statement on Friday. And after we do those two things, we have to responsibly but realistically, deal with people that are here illegally.
Cruz has previously insisted on not engaging with Republican opponents until the primary’s “seasons change”.
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“It could be Rubio this time, and another one another time”, said Ladonna Ryggs, who leads the Cruz campaign in SC, where Cruz will visit Saturday. “So everybody running for president on the Republican side in one way or shape supports a few form or fashion the legalization of people that are in this country illegally”.
