Echoing Trump, Cruz Releases Sweeping Plan to Crack Down on Immigration

Among Cruz’s amendments was a proposal to increase fivefold the number of visas available for highly skilled workers, an idea that has drawn the ire of a few immigration hardliners with an increasing focus on the issue in the presidential race.

But Rubio spokesman Alex Conant said the Florida senator has made clear he now opposes moving on a bill in a comprehensive fashion, saying Washington must enact individual pieces of immigration reform – starting with border and interior enforcement – before debating a path to citizenship.

Cruz is drawing attention to his stance against “amnesty” for people living in the country illegally and his efforts to defund Planned Parenthood and repeal President Barack Obama’s health care law. Without naming names, he blasted Republicans who support giving law-abiding illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. He would also enforce the “public-charge” doctrine, which would force immigrants to certify they are self-sufficient before they are given permission to live in the US “The objective of legal immigration should be to grow the economy, not displace American workers”, he said. He disavows it now, but Cruz won’t stop talking about it.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has informed Democrats he may schedule a vote next week on a hard-line immigration bill pushed by Texas Sen.

Ted Cruz, who previously said he wanted to increase legal immigration fivefold, has now changed his mind. “Every single amendment”, Cruz said Laura Ingraham today.

Many undocumented immigrants should be allowed to stay and eventually apply to become citizens, Rubio believes, provided they meet certain conditions and are willing to be patient. Cruz has not rejected the scenario, last week calling it a “plausible outcome” and saying he was “very confident” he could best Rubio in a head-to-head matchup. “I do believe, and I’ve believed this through this campaign, that if I’m our nominee, we’re going to be viewed as the party of the future and the Democrats are going to be viewed as the party of the past”.

“I can tell you, for millions of Americans at home watching this, it is a very personal economic issue”, Cruz said, “I will say the politics of it will be very, very different if a bunch of lawyers or bankers were crossing the Rio Grande or if a bunch of people with journalism degrees were coming over and driving down the wages in the press”. It would increase penalties for re-entering the country illegally.

The long-simmering feud boiled over Thursday, with the candidates and their campaigns trading barbs over their positions on immigration, an issue on which Cruz has long presented himself as most aligned with the GOP base.

“That’s day one”, Cruz said to a mingling of laughs. Republicans from Bush to Ben Carson have voiced a few support for H-1B visas, and Rubio’s push for a more ambitious, Microsoft-backed bill has drawn the ire of Sessions, who said Rubio’s legislation would “quash the dreams of more talented Americans”.

“Is [Mr. Cruz] trying to insinuate that Marco Rubio – a fellow Spanish surname, I’m not sure the right word is “Hispanic” for them, because they are Cuban nationals or whatever, or come from Cuba – but is he going to insinuate that he is still basically for what he calls amnesty?”

McConnell has been under conservative pressure to bring it to a vote. Instead, the Journal opined, Rubio was keeping company with “progressive hero” Sen. He said the program was created to bring in true talent that was not readily available in America. “I think the first war was a mistake and I’m not for another one”.

Rand Paul seized on Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris to criticize GOP presidential rival Sen.

He got another standing ovation when he called for an end to “birthright citizenship”, and elicited howls for accusing President Obama of having time for “Ahmed the clock kid”, but not to address the death of Kate Steinle, who was shot to death in San Francisco by a man who had been deported several times.