Marco Rubio: Ted Cruz Voted to ‘Weaken’ Intel Programs

He’s supported a massive expansion of the (H-1B visa) program, a 500 percent increase…

“I don’t think our positions are dramatically different”, Rubio said.

Cruz criticized Rubio on Thursday for voting against the Texan’s amendments to the “Gang of Eight” immigration reform bill to bolster border security.

In media appearances and on the campaign trail in New Hampshire – where Cruz filed Thursday to officially be on the primary ballot – Rubio remains a target.

But he has now tied himself to the beliefs of a candidate who is intent on winning the GOP nomination on self-deportation – and exposed the truth behind the Marco-is-moderate myth. Rubio’s whole argument for his campaign is that he represents an alternative to the dogmatism that has left the GOP brand as tarnished as it’s been since Watergate.

2016 Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has adopted a new hardline approach to immigration that includes putting a halt on even legal immigration in the U.S. His bill would have invited more immigration, provided pathways to both legal status and citizenship for most of the nation’s illegal population, did not make border security a top priority, provided carve outs for a few illegal aliens convicted of misdemeanor crimes, and was replete with rewards for special interests. Meanwhile, Rubio is insisting that every GOP candidate has supported the legalization of undocumented immigrants. Just as his verbal style is to answer tough questions from the press with a machine gun salvo of stump speech rhetoric delivered with rapid fire talking points, Rubio and his team are clearly prepared to respond to attacks from his rivals on known vulnerabilities (such as his personal financial scandals and his history with the Gang of Eight) with a flurry of documents and a barrage of facts. The key evidence for that: Though Cruz’s amendment failed, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions and Utah Senator Mike Lee, two fierce Republican opponents of legalizing undocumented people, voted for it. Democrats, who controlled the Senate, had made a path to citizenship a non-negotiable component of reform. It was a legislative tactic… 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.

Attempting to add poison pills to legislation is “an age-old tactic”, says Worth Hester, an expert on legislative politics and professor at Georgetown University. They offered a distinct contrast in styles. But Rubio’s positions on many issues are far to the right of most Latinos: he recently came out in favor of deporting DREAMers, the Latino students fighting for legal status, and is confused on comprehensive immigration reform.

In recent months, Cruz has distanced himself from that proposal, citing growing concerns that companies are taking advantage of the H-1B program. “He has never advocated for it”, said Catherine Frazier, his spokeswoman. “Senator Cruz was doing his job as a senator to improve a fundamentally flawed bill, and two, to expose the bill for what it was, which was amnesty”. In a statement Thursday, Correct the Record spokesman Daniel Wessel said Cruz’s bid for the White House “appeals to a small sect of the far, far right-wing, the kind of voters who supported Cruz’s pointless crusade to shut down the government when he was first elected”. His position, his campaign said, is that he’ll refuse to even discuss what to do with the undocumented population until the border is secure.

But Rubio has an answer for this: We’re not so different, you and I. An expansion of legal immigration so as to obviate the enormous demand for illegal immigration?

That was clear in one meeting, described by four lobbyists in the room, where the GOP senators were being asked to agree to more “guest workers” in the bill.

“It is not complicated that on the seminal fight over amnesty in Congress, the Gang of Eight bill – that was the brainchild of Chuck Schumer and Barack Obama, would have granted amnesty to 12 million people here illegally – that I stood with the American people and led the fight to defeat it in the United States Congress”, he said.