Cruz offered an amendment to the bill that only changed giving citizenship to the illegals. He supported their legalization.
Cruz Tries to Claim the Middle Ground on Immigration
What Mr. Cruz has tried to articulate in both word and deed is a middle ground. It got no support from Democrats in Washington, but it goes further than many on the far right want to go by offering leniency to undocumented immigrants here already: A path to legal status, but not to citizenship. A green card with no right to naturalization.
“The amendment that I introduced removed the path to citizenship, but it did not change the underlying work permit from the Gang of Eight,” he said during a recent visit to El Paso. Mr. Cruz also noted that he had not called for deportation or, as Mitt Romney famously advocated, self-deportation. Mr. Cruz said recent polling indicated that people outside Washington support some reform, including legal status without citizenship. He said he was against naturalization because it rewarded lawbreakers and was unfair to legal immigrants. It also perpetuates illegal crossings, he added.
Besides barring citizenship while instituting some level of legalization for those here already, Mr. Cruz has proposed increasing the number of green cards awarded annually, to 1.35 million from 675,000. He also wants to eliminate the per-country limit that he said left applicants from countries like Mexico, China and India hamstrung when they tried to gain legal entry to this country.
What did Cruz do about border security or a plan to track and deport visa overstays. Any legislation?
Ted isn’t President yet so asking what he did about border security or a plan to track and deport overstays on visas isn’t his to make...he can only vote for or against and introduce what is possible...which he has worked hand in glove with Jeff Sessions on.
There’s isn’t a single Politician...Trump included... that will “close” the border....it’s all about “securing” the border for the flow of the worker commodity.
When Cruz speaks of path to Citizenship he speaks of legal path ways already law.
In a conference call with Alabama Republicans in July 2015, . Cruz listed off some details of his plan to stop illegal immigration, including E-Verify. ....”Cruz said he supports ‘tripling the number of border patrol officers ‘instituting a “strong biometric entry/exit system” to stop visa overstays and implementing a “strong E-Verify system” so people can’t get a job without proving they aren’t in the country illegally.”