"I don't want immigration reform to fail. I want immigration reform to pass, and so I would urge people of good faith on both sides of the aisle, if the objective is to pass common sense immigration reform that secures the borders, that improves legal immigration, and that allows those who are here illegally to come in out of the shadows, then we should look for areas of bipartisan agreement and compromise to come together and this amendment -- I believe if this amendment were to pass the chances of this bill passing into law would increase dramatically, and so I would urge the committee to give it full consideration and to adopt the amendment." Cruz supported a Post-Amendment Gang of Eight bill, which would have granted legal status.
You must enjoy being schooled
Just schooled you, chump.
Delusional darling:
SEN. TED CRUZ: This Gang of Eight bill is a disaster. It is the exact same thing we saw in 1986. The last big immigration reform was in 1986, and the federal government told the American people, we’re gonna grant amnesty for the three million people who are here illegally. And in exchange for that we’re actually gonna secure the borders. We’re gonna solve illegal immigration, and the problem is gonna go away.
Now, we saw what happened. The amnesty happened, the borders never got secured, and now three decades later, instead of three million people, it’s 11 million people.
RUSH LIMBAUGH: Is it 11 or is it — do we really know how many it is?
CRUZ: We don’t know. I mean, the estimates vary, 11 million, 12 million. We don’t have an exact number, but it is three to four times bigger than what it was in 1986, and we’re hearing the exact same empty promises. What the Gang of Eight bill does is it grants legalization now. It takes everyone who’s here illegally and says, “You’re legal,” and then just like in 1986 it promises, “sometime in the future, trust us, wink-wink, we’ll secure the border.” I don’t think the American people are that foolish. You know, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. If this bill is enacted, it will make the problem worse. If this bill is enacted, in another decade or two we’re gonna be back here not with 11 million, but with 20 million or 30 million people here illegally. This is a broken system. I think what Americans want is fix the problem, stop playing political games, actually secure the border and make a legal immigration system that works.
RUSH: Senator, you’ve been, obviously, observing and commenting on political life in America for a long time. You’ve been in the Senate now for six months. Could you explain to me and people in this audience, why do the Democrats want this, and why do the Republicans who support this want it?
CRUZ: Well, the Democrats want this for pure politics. Chuck Schumer was very candid in the Senate Judiciary Committee when he said, “If there is no citizenship, there can be no reform.” This is all about their endeavor. They want to grant amnesty, and they hope to get a lot more Democratic voters, or they want this to be voted down and use it as a political issue in 2014 and 2016.
On the Republican side, sadly, a lot of the support of it is political as well. You know, after 2012, all of the Washington political consultants and all the mainstream media came to Republicans and said, “You’ve got to do better with Hispanics, and the way to do better with Hispanics is to embrace amnesty.” And, look, a lot of Republicans in Washington were scared. I gotta tell you, I think that political argument is complete nonsense. If you look at the last time we enacted amnesty in 1986, the next election was 1988, the Republican share of the Hispanic vote went down. It is not the case — Hispanics are not the single-issue, monolithic voters.
http://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=89
June 27, 2013
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press@cruz.senate.gov / (202) 228-7561
WASHINGTON, DC — U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) issued the following statement regarding today’s vote on S.744, the Gang of Eight’s immigration reform bill:
Unfortunately, all of the concerns that have been repeatedly raised about this bill remain: it repeats the mistakes of the 1986 immigration bill; it grants amnesty first; it won’t secure the border; and it doesn’t fix our broken legal immigration system.
This bill doesn’t solve the problem because the process it went through was fatally flawed– it was written behind closed doors with special interests; in the Judiciary Committee, the Gang of 8 and Democrats blocked all substantive amendments because of a previously cooked deal; and on the Senate floor, the majority blocked any attempts to fix the bill.
Further, in conjunction with Obamacare, the Gang of 8 bill creates a tax penalty on employers – effectively, up to $5,000 – for hiring U.S. citizens or legal immigrants. But that penalty does not apply to those with RPI status, giving a powerful incentive for job creators to hire illegal immigrants instead of U.S. citizens or legal immigrants. That is indefensible. I filed an amendment to fix this defect, but was blocked by Senate Democrats from receiving a vote on that solution.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/17/ted-cruz-voter-id-immigration_n_3456063.html
WASHINGTON — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) announced on Monday another amendment to throw a wrench into the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill: tying it to voter ID.
The amendment, which he first announced on Twitter, is unlikely to make it into the eventual bill. Cruz voted three times — once in the Judiciary Committee and twice on the Senate floor — against moving the “gang of eight” bill forward even for debate, and is considered unwinnable as a “yes” vote for the legislation as a whole.
Still, he has attempted to add his own touches to the bill, such as stripping it of its path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. The most recent amendment would touch on the equally contentious issue of whether would-be voters should be required to show identification to prove their citizenship before registering to vote.