“I can tell you that I flew back to Washington, D.C., today to vote against this omnibus”, Cruz said then, adding that he would let Rubio “defend his own voting record”.
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“For the first time in five debates, Senator Rubio publicly admitted not only did he support Obama and Schumer’s amnesty but he still supports amnesty and citizenship today”, Cruz said Thursday – highlighting a Rubio stance that is anathema to the GOP’s conservative base. “Ted Cruz (R-TX).” href=”http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/ted-cruz-on-the-issues.html?inline=nyt-per” Ted Cruz’s toughness on illegal immigration, a line of attack that some Republicans say they find disingenuous. “I oppose amnesty. I oppose citizenship”. Yet in the three days following the debate, it was Cruz who found himself contending more than Rubio with his involvement in the so-called “Gang of Eight” bill, a development that has put the Texan in his most defensive posture since entering the race. Around 54 percent of unauthorized Latino immigrants in 2013 said they identified with or leaned toward the Democratic party, compared to 19 percent who said the same of the Republican Party.
Lee, who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee with Ted Cruz says claims that Cruz supported this bill are “100% false”. “No, I don’t think it turned it around”. That’s because history tells a straightforward tale, according to Cruz’s campaign: Cruz led the fight against the Gang of Eight bill, while Rubio’s fingerprints are all over it. “I oppose legalization for illegal aliens”, Cruz said.
While Cruz has defended that course on multiple occasions in the Senate and in interviews, on Thursday he said he was simply calling his opponents’ bluff. Cruz said at one point, visibly irritated.
On Thursday, the “super PAC” supporting Mr. Bush released a new ad, “Tough Enough”, that opens with the words, “One candidate tough enough to take on the bully”, before cutting to an exchange between Mr. Bush and Mr. Trump from the debate. Cruz has seen his top-tier status confirmed by at least one post-debate poll that showed him in second place nationally, albeit far behind Trump. He picked up an endorsement from influential Iowa conservative Bob Vander Plaats on December 10 and another from Ken Cuccinelli, former attorney general of Virginia, on Friday.
It is in some of those deeply conservative states that the immigration debate is most pitched.
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But the biggest dispute between Cruz and Rubio is over the two-year-old immigration bill that would have given undocumented immigrants a path to gaining USA citizenship. And he suggested the wrong choice could hurt the state’s first-in-the-nation primary.
