Posted on 04/24/2015 4:12:26 PM PDT by VinL
Sen. Ted Cruz on Friday took a shot at rival presidential contender Scott Walker for comments the Wisconsin governor has made regarding immigration policy.
Cruz opposes comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for the estimated 11-12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. But the Texan is a big proponent of legal immigration and making adjustments to U.S. law that would facilitate more legal immigration. He criticized Walker for suggesting that he supported limiting legal immigration if it has a negative impact on the wages of American workers.
"There is considerable bipartisan agreement outside of Washington that we need to improve and streamline legal immigration so that we can remain a nation that welcomes and celebrates legal immigrants," Cruz said in an interview with the Washington Examiner during a brief campaign swing through Las Vegas.after cost estimates came in higher than anticipated.
I think it is a mistake for any politician to on the one hand embrace amnesty, embrace a pathway to citizenship for those who are here illegally, and on the other hand seek to restrict or punish legal immigrants," Cruz continued. "I am the son of an immigrant who came legally from Cuba. [President Ronald] Reagan referred to legal immigrants as Americans by choice and there is no stronger advocate of legal immigration in the U.S. Senate than I am."
"I think the right approach is to secure the border, follow the rule of law and embrace and improve legal immigration," Cruz said.
Walker has conceded a change of heart on immigration policy as he gears up to launch a 2016 presidential bid. The governor, 47, previously supported a pathway to legal status for illegal immigrants. Now he is opposed. Supporting a pathway to legalization or citizenship could be problematic for a Republican candidate seeking his party's White House nomination.
But in a recent interview with conservative talk show host Glenn Beck, Walker appeared to move farther to the right on immigration than even amnesty hawks like Cruz. Here's what Walker said, as reported by Breitbart. (read more)
So anybody here fantasizing this to be your golden egg of bashing Cruz
can just forget it.
We had this discussion in the 1920s as the number of immigrants started flooding the country impacting negatively on American workers and the society. This was pre-welfare state. A consensus developed among business, the labor unions, and immigrant groups. We limited legal immigration from 1925 to 1965 to about 190,000 a year. We now have 1.1 million a year. Today, one in 8 is foreign born, which is the highest in 90 years, i.e., in the 1920s. The problem is that the unions, churches, Dems, the Chamber of Commerce, ethinic interest groups, and "moderate" Reps have formed a coalition for vested parochial interests. Each benefits from mass immigration.
But the fact remains that most Americans want legal immigration reduced. The political, corporate, and media elites demonize anyone who has the courage to note that our legal immigration policies are not serving the national interests and they are, in fact, destroying the country.
If Walker backs down, then I would be disinclined to support him either.
I think it is a mistake for any politician to on the one hand embrace amnesty, embrace a pathway to citizenship for those who are here illegally, and on the other hand seek to restrict or punish legal immigrants,” Cruz continued. “I am the son of an immigrant who came legally from Cuba. [President Ronald] Reagan referred to legal immigrants as Americans by choice and there is no stronger advocate of legal immigration in the U.S. Senate than I am.”
“I think the right approach is to secure the border, follow the rule of law and embrace and improve legal immigration,” Cruz said.
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As an immigrant, I concur...
You notice I said IMMIGRANT, having that noun stand alone without any qualifying adjective...
There is only one type of immigrant, any other form of entry into our sovereign nation is illegal..thus the person who would do such a thing is not an immigrant of any kind but an illegal alien...
I like Ted but he’s weak on immigration.
California's legal-immigration driven change to a one-party state? Does that get a "Yes" from you too?
What about the Somali and other Muslim immigrants that Barry lets in with unconditionally.
There's simply too many legal immigrants from the 3rd world and other parasites who aren't accepting American culture and values.
John F. Kennedy had a dream to replace the American people with foreign voters, a different kind of voter, the importation of an endless supply of democrat voters.
However, if there is one man who can take the most credit for the 1965 act, it is John F. Kennedy. Kennedy seems to have inherited the resentment his father Joseph felt as an outsider in Bostons WASP aristocracy. He voted against the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, and supported various refugee acts throughout the 1950s.
In 1958 he wrote a book, A Nation of Immigrants, which attacked the quota system as illogical and without purpose, and the book served as Kennedys blueprint for immigration reform after he became president in 1960. In the summer of 1963, Kennedy sent Congress a proposal calling for the elimination of the national origins quota system. He wanted immigrants admitted on the basis of family reunification and needed skills, without regard to national origin.
After his assassination in November, his brother Robert took up the cause of immigration reform, calling it JFKs legacy. In the forward to a revised edition of A Nation of Immigrants, issued in 1964 to gain support for the new law, he wrote, I know of no cause which President Kennedy championed more warmly than the improvement of our immigration policies. Sold as a memorial to JFK, there was very little opposition to what became known as the Immigration Act of 1965.
Sounds familiar on FR...”I like Palin but...”
Oh yea! Thats where I heard that before. Lots of that a while back from people determined to get another lib into power. Always a but when a conservative gains traction here.
You can attack Walker all you want, but why not focus on substance. Cruz advocates increasing legal immigration and he attacks Walker like a Democrat. He is painting Walker as being against legal immigration. Karl Rove, McCain, and Graham used to attack such people as Walker as bigots, nativists, and xenophobes. Cruz is trying to prevent a rational discussion of immigration as a public policy issue by demonizing Walker. It won’t work.
Walker flipped like a Democrat. Or a typical GOP.
Totally different era.
The idyllic, Americana immigration of the late 1800s and early 1900s - where immigrants "got off the boat" and learned the American way of life and made America much stronger in the process - pales in comparison to giving automatic legal status to parasites of Muslim and 3rd world Latino nations.
REPEAL TED KENNEDY'S (D-HELL) 1965 IMMIGRATION ACT
You’re getting carried away by your imagination.
IMO, this is the money quote. It's exactly what Walker's policy is. He lies about it, but at the end of the day Walker wants illegals to pay a fine and stay.
That is the GOPe Chamber of Commerce stance right there.
The guy may fool the weak minded, but he's not fooling anyone who listens closely, isn't already in the tank for him, or playing games for the GOPe.
Homely Ted wants to increase the flood into our homeland. That’s a disqualifying position.
What politician today is against legal immigration? Walker is in favor of legal immigration. The problem is that we are bringing in too many people. Cruz wants to increase those numbers even further.
“So you celebrate the legal immigration of hundreds of thousand of Muslims into the USA?.”
Quite frankly, I am not for any muslims being allowed to immigrate here. They are insane, and I do not want them here. My government never asked me my opinion before letting them in sadly.
“California’s legal-immigration driven change to a one-party state?”
I can’t help what California did to itself. They have always a lot loony tunes there.
It hasn’t happened to the rest of the country though where there is also legal immigration, so I tend to think it’s a California kinda thing.
However, it seems clear our government is trying the same thing with illegal immigration, and thus I do not support it.
I wish you people would stop trying to “use their strengths against them.”
It’s become extremely obvious. You need to be more stealth about this. Don’t make it so easy.
Why shouldn’t they? It’s not like anyone will stop them.
Let’s see if I got this. Cruz wants to deny Illegals something that very few of them want (citizenship), but will give them want they ALL want (legal status) while easing the legal immigration process. Not sure that plan is much better than Walker’s or Rubio’s.
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