President Obama is pushing a path to citizenship as a "poison pill" to prevent meaningful immigration reform, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) charged Monday. "The part that I"ve got deep concerns about is any path to citizenship for those who are here illegally," Cruz said during an interview with Sean Hannity. "I think that is profoundly unfair to the millions of legal immigrants who have followed the rules, who have waited in line.
"I think the reason that President Obama is insisting on a path to citizenship is that it is designed to be a poison pill to scuttle the whole bill, so he can have a political issue in 2014 and 2016. I think that's really unfortunate," continued Cruz.
The Tea Party favorite said Congress could easily pass a comprehensive immigration reform deal if Democrats, and particularly Obama, stopped demanding the inclusion of a pathway to citizenship for immigrants living in the country illegally.
Cruz's comments came as a bipartisan group of senators indicate that it's nearly done crafting a broad immigration bill. The so-called "Gang of Eight" hopes to unveil the legislation in April, with Sen. Lindsey Graham on Sunday suggesting that the group could unveil legislation as early as next week...."
WASHINGTON - Among the 300 amendments to the Senate immigration bill is one that would take away one of its central purposes: giving a pathway to citizenship to the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), an almost certain "no" vote on the bill from the so-called gang of eight, filed an amendment on Tuesday to ban anyone who has been in the U.S. without status from becoming a citizen at any point.
The path to citizenship under the gang of eight bill is already a difficult one. It would take about 13 years and require immigrants to complete a number of requirements, such as learning English and paying hefty fines. Undocumented immigrants would first apply for provisional immigrant status, and most would be required stay in the U.S. for at least a decade before being eligible to apply for legal permanent residency. They could then eventually apply to be a U.S. citizen. But the government would have to meet certain border security benchmarks before any provisional immigrant could move into legal permanent resident status........
Ted Cruz Files Amendment To Deny Path To Citizenship As Senate Works On Bill
......"The amendments filed today to strengthen border security and reform our legal immigration system will not only bring meaningful, effective improvements to our immigration system, but also have a chance of becoming law," said Cruz in a statement. "America is a nation of immigrants, built by immigrants and we need to honor that heritage by fixing our broken immigration system, while upholding the rule of law and championing legal immigration."
His amendments are among more than 300 filed by the Tuesday evening deadline. Republicans wanting tighter enforcement provisions filed a majority of the amendments, with Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, leading the pack with 77 amendments.
Supporters of the bill, mainly of the part of it that would legalize millions of undocumented immigrants, kept a steady drumbeat in defense of the measure though emails, websites and social media.
In a press release, America's Voice, a leading national group that advocates for more lenient immigration laws, singled out Cruz's anti-citizenship amendment as particularly worrisome.
"This would not only destroy the path to citizenship in the Senate bill - the popular heart of an immigration reform solution - but also turn its back on 100 years of precedent in immigration policy," said the release..........
........Cruz says his amendment was a "poison pill" designed to doom the Gang of Eight reform package that Rubio co-authored.
So who's actually correct? There are two big points to unpack.
First is whether Cruz's amendment was indeed a "poison pill" meant to kill the immigration bill, which the Texas senator's campaign now contends. That is unequivocally true, so point goes to Cruz.
Second is whether Cruz's amendment signaled his true policy beliefs at the time. That's significantly murkier and ultimately, may never be knowable.
Let's start with the first point.
The bipartisan group of eight senators - including battle-tested veterans and relative newcomers like Rubio - painstakingly negotiated a delicate compromise in early 2013 that would overhaul every corner of the U.S. immigration system, including a 13-year pathway to citizenship for millions here illegally.
Fans and foes of the legislation, as well as observers at the time, knew the core bill couldn't change too dramatically because that would upset that compromise, which not only had the backing of Democrats and Republicans in the Senate but also coalitions off the Hill, such as labor unions and the business lobby.
Cruz's amendment - which called for stripping out a pathway to citizenship, but keeping a path for legalization - would have done precisely that.
The night before each Senate Judiciary Committee markup, senior Gang of Eight aides would huddle to scour through each of the amendments that were teed up for the following day, determining which proposals would be palatable and which would be unacceptable. This strategy was meant to ensure the core elements of the Gang of Eight deal would stay intact (the four members of the Gang who sat on the Judiciary Committee would vote in a bloc, usually with the rest of the committee Democrats, to vote down potential deal-killers).
"This one was one that clearly we all had to oppose because it went to the core of the deal," recalled an aide to a Senate Democrat during the 2013 negotiations. "It could've unraveled the whole deal."
Sure, Cruz himself never called it a "poison pill" at the time. But no senator refers to his own proposal as a poison pill, even if it plainly is. The Gang of Eight never considered Cruz as "gettable," and it was well-known at the time that Cruz was never going to vote for the bill and was in fact, trying to kill it.
"Everyone was rolling their eyes and smirking when he said it would improve the bill," said the aide. "I don't think anybody took it seriously.".........
Jan 29, 2016 - FR THEAD: Megyn Kelly to Ted Cruz: "The record supports you."
"After the Fox News-Google debate Megyn Kelly interviewed Ted Cruz. [7:40 Video begins with a 1:00 clip of the earlier debate]
Kelly continued to pursue the "amnesty" angle that she'd begun during the debate [starting at 3:41] - about his history on illegals, immigration and amnesty, but concedes:
Kelly: "I look at your record, a lot, to see: Did Ted Cruz really want legalization, or didn't he?"
"I think the record supports you - that you did not want it; it does."
"It really was a poison pill amendment."
Then there is back and forth where Kelly states that Cruz had said that he wanted the Gang of Eight bill to pass.
Sen. Cruz corrects her and states that he wants immigration reform to pass -- but he never said he wanted the Gang of Eignt bill to pass. [He directs everyone to see the 11-page, very very detailed immigration plan on website (linked in comment below)].
Cruz explains tactics: "When debating Democrats [Schumer] you use the language of Democrats to show their hypocrisy."
"Schumer talked about 'coming out of the shadows' but it wasn't about that."
"Chuck Schumer said, 'If there is no citizenship, there is no reform and we'll kill the whole thing.'"
Their interview ended this way:
Megyn Kelly: "The record supports you." [Cruz: "Anyone here illegally is permanently ineligible for citizenship."]
"It was a poison pill."
"You do have a consistent record on that; I will give you that; we did look back on it."
******************
Donald Trump on immigration:
News Max - Nov 29, 2012: Donald Trump: Mean-Spirited GOP Won't Win Elections
Whether intended or not, comments and policies of Mitt Romney and other Republican candidates during this election were seen by Hispanics and Asians as hostile to them, Trump says.
"Republicans didn't have anything going for them with respect to Latinos and with respect to Asians," the billionaire developer says.
"The Democrats didn't have a policy for dealing with illegal immigrants, but what they did have going for them is they weren't mean-spirited about it," Trump says. "They didn't know what the policy was, but what they were is they were kind."
Romney's solution of "self deportation" for illegal aliens made no sense and suggested that Republicans do not care about Hispanics in general, Trump says.
"He had a crazy policy of self deportation which was maniacal," Trump says. "It sounded as bad as it was, and he lost all of the Latino vote," Trump notes. "He lost the Asian vote. He lost everybody who is inspired to come into this country."
The GOP has to develop a comprehensive policy "to take care of this incredible problem that we have with respect to immigration, with respect to people wanting to be wonderful productive citizens of this country," Trump says...."
"The key bit comes at 5:40 of the clip. Money line: "I always had a great relationship with Harry Reid. And frankly, if I weren't running for office I'd be able to deal with her [Pelosi], I'd be able to deal with Reid, I'd be able to deal with anybody." This point has been made often, most recently by Andy McCarthy, but it can't be repeated enough: This guy is on the verge of beating Ted Cruz as an "outsider": by touting his record of cronyism. How can you be anti-establishment, wonders McCarthy, when you're crowing about your history of essentially bribing politicians, including politicians from the other party? It's a perfect complement to Trump, the least socially conservative candidate in the Republican field, landing the endorsement of the son of the man who founded the Moral Majority.".......