Cruz has scoffed at suggestions that his position is the same as the Florida senator’s on the issue, saying the Rubio campaign is trying to “muddy the waters”.
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Cruz rejected a pathway to legal status. But in multiple speeches and interviews from the time, Cruz described his amendment as an earnest effort to craft an acceptable compromise bill that could attract conservative votes, undercutting his claim that he never entertained allowing undocumented immigrants to remain in the country. “I believe that is the compromise that can pass”.
That’s not Rubio’s interpretation.
Cruz finally got the explosive exchange that he has long sought with Rubio over a path to citizenship for those who entered the country illegally. You know, Mark Levin wrote a column last week that says that the attack ads his Super PAC is running that are saying the same thing, that they are knowingly false, and they are, in fact, Alinsky-like attacks like Barack Obama. Voters know where he stands.
Cruz repeated to the press on Friday that the amendment was a ploy to show that Democrats only wanted citizenship in order to add new voters and pointed to support for the measure from conservatives like Sen. “You’re going to have to do it and prove to people that it’s working, and that was the lesson of 2013”.
“We may see a few shots coming our direction, and I suppose in a sense that’s a backhanded compliment”, Cruz told CNN as he entered The Venetian in Las Vegas before the debate.
Losing his credibility on that issue would be a “devastating blow”, veteran Iowa Republican Doug Gross told CBS News.
According to the survey, 42% of GOP viewers saw Bush in a less favorable light after the debate, while 37% said their view of him hadn’t changed.
Cruz has shifted even further to the right on immigration since 2013.
“He was a supporter of legal immigration, as he said at the time and repeated to multiple media outlets for months”, Rubio said Thursday.
The two are jockeying to become the Republican alternative to front-runner Donald Trump, and as each have climbed in the polls, they’ve ratcheted up attacks on each other over defense funding, USA government surveillance and other issues.
Many Republicans in Iowa like that idea. “I’m not going to enforce it.’ You enforce the law, and federal immigration law provides that if someone is here illegally and apprehended, that they should be sent back to their home country”.
It was a nice relief after a rough 48 hours in which an array of conservative commentators sharply criticized Cruz for his evolving rhetoric on immigration, a topic that he’s made a centerpiece of his case against Rubio. “Does Ted Cruz rule out ever legalizing people that are in this country now?”
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“This was a move to co-opt all of the big-money Republican donors who support amnesty because for big business, amnesty means cheap labor”, he said. “It is complete and utter nonsense”.
