Fact Check: Cruz, Rubio Parry & Dodge On Immigration

Buoyed by an aggressive performance in Tuesday’s Republican debate, Mr Jeb Bush is intensifying his strategy of attacking Mr Donald Trump’s fitness for the presidency. Rubio, of course, is famous for championing a comprehensive immigration bill in 2013 that included a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. “Thank you for allowing me to do it”, he admitted, half-jokingly. “There is no stronger advocate for legal immigration in the U.S. Senate than I am”, he told an audience at a United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce event in April.

He’s coming off a debate in which he tangled with a fellow senator, Florida’s Marco Rubio, over immigration. He opposes citizenship. But does he support legalization?

A day later, it’s still No. 1 Donald Trump against everyone else (except his new pal, Ted Cruz). Here you have two Senators accusing each other of double-talk and legislative sleight of hand-debating incremental steps toward fixing our broken immigration system-while the outsider business mogul speaks in clear, declarative sentences about building walls and mass deportations.

“I think he wanted to have to have it both ways”, Jacoby told TPM.

But this isn’t true.

In fact, Cruz’s first appearance on Limbaugh’s show was to criticize the bill, repeating his still go-to message that it would support amnesty while promising border security at a later date.

Ted Cruz spoke about the National Security Agency’s surveillance program during an exchange with Marco Rubio during the fifth GOP debate on Tuesday night, and in doing so, potentially leaked classified information to the nation.

It’s worth thinking for a moment about how that would operate.

By offering his amendments, Cruz meant to show that the true intention of the bill authors – including Rubio – was amnesty.

In interviews with TPM Thursday, Sharry and other reformers said they did not believe Cruz’s amendment to the so-called Gang of Eight bill was the “poison pill” Cruz is making it out to be now. “I would like to see the Republican Party come together,”said Trump”.

“It would simply provide that there are consequences for having come illegally, for not having followed the legal rules, for not having waited in line, and those consequences are that those individuals are not eligible for citizenship”. But that’s not what he said at the time. You can’t even begin that process until you prove to people – not just pass a law that says you’re gonna bring illegal immigration under control. And as part of the immigration reform debate in 2013, Cruz introduced legislation that proposed eventual legal status for millions.

Whether Ted Cruz had spoken about things he should not have, was the topic of much debate. Legalization blurs the contrast between him and Rubio; mass deportation is both extremely alienating and also makes Cruz look beholden to Trump rather than like his own man; and the goldilocks position was a total disaster in 2012 and forever associated with its unloved progenitor, Mitt Romney. And it’s not likely to end here.