Cruz is the only other GOP candidate who has been fairly consistently opposed to amnesty, but he didn't talk much about it. Trump put the illegal immigration at center stage, and in response, Cruz has been talking about immigration more in the past weeks than he's said in past years.
So even if Trump's newfound opposition to illegal immigration is fake and opportunistic (which I think it is), it serves a useful purpose by putting one of the most important issues facing this country center-stage. Even though Trump is the wrong messenger, the message is right.
That’s been my whole point. You don’t have to like Trump, just understand that he is serving a useful purpose.
Cruz supports legalization of the lawbreakers, which is amnesty. He also supports quadrupling the guest worker programs.
Cruz Tries to Claim the Middle Ground on Immigration
“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.