Trump has by far the better plan. It was written largely by Sessions' office. Cruz has seen how effective Trump has been with his immigration policy and he now tries to mimic it. You must be able to parse what Cruz has said to understand where the differences and deficiencies are. I have spent 9 years on this issue and can spot them. Still, I am glad that Cruz is moving in the right direction on immigration. He has had a Trumpiphany.
Cruz has also been getting tutored by Sessions for some time now.
His illegal immigration plan has a multiple points said there is to be no path to citizenship ever.
So far as how many legal immigrants his plan will prevent from entering the US, I would say that it will prevent some. I believe I’ve read recently that over half of current legal immigrants access the welfare/social net system. One of Cruz’s amendments to the CIB required his H1B business visas to have something like a million dollars. I’d have to go read it again, but it was a poison pill amendment, so it was rejected.
Cruz is not a legal dummy. He knows what he’s doing. He has been consistently supporting H1B visas and he knows it, although he said it was based on research showing the H1B visas provided 2 or 3 jobs for each visa. I think he said recently he is relooking that.
I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt....apparently, Trump is, too.