Trumpertantrum is on Twitter this morning lying about Ted Cruz again, this time on immigration. Apparently he saw Cruz’s interview last night on the BillO show where Cruz said he would follow the law and deport illegals. Trump is responding to that on Twitter by saying that Cruz is only talking tough on illegal immigration now because he lost South Carolina and then accuses him of being in favor of amnesty:
Ted Cruz only talks tough on immigration now because he did so badly in S.C. He is in favor of amnesty and weak on illegal immigration.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 23, 2016
Everything Trump said there is patently false. Cruz’s position on illegal immigration has not changed and we have video to prove it.
At the beginning of January, weeks before the Iowa Caucus, Cruz told this to someone who asked him about deporting illegals:
The Texas senator, who is leading the field of Republican presidential candidates in Iowa according to the latest polls, was asked by a man in the state if, like Trump, he believed that all undocumented immigrants should be deported.
Cruz replied, “Absolutely yes.”
“And in fact, look, there’s a difference,” said Cruz. “He’s advocated allowing folks to come back in and become citizens. I oppose that.”
Cruz will not only deport them but also won’t let illegals return to become citizens, like Trump says he will do. This is exactly what Cruz said last night on the BillO show.
But wait, I thought Ted Cruz said he wouldn’t go looking for illegals to deport?
That’s not exactly what he said. This is what he said in January as well:
“I don’t intend to send jackboots to knock on your door and every door in America, that’s not how we enforce the law for any crime,” Mr. Cruz told CNN in an interview broadcast Sunday.
“That is not how American law enforcement works, we also don’t have people going door-to-door looking for murderers, we don’t live in a police state,” Mr. Cruz said.
“Federal immigration law says if we apprehend an individual who is here illegally, they are to be deported. I will enforce the law,” Mr. Cruz told CNN.
Cruz is always very precise in his language. He has never advocated knocking on doors, asking for the papers of everyone in the home, and then dragging out the illegals that are found.
Rather, Cruz says he will follow the law and deport illegals that are apprehended. In other words, if an illegal is apprehended for breaking the law, even immigration law, they will be deported.
This is the very same thing he said last night.
But let’s take a spin and go way back into the past and see what Cruz said in 2011 and 2012, well before The Donald was even thinking about illegal immigration.
Here’s what he said in 2011 via Patterico:
CRUZ: There were a lot of questions in that piece. Let me lay out my position on immigration, because I can state it simply and in one sentence. I am strongly opposed to illegal immigration. I am categorically opposed to amnesty. And I strongly support legal immigrants who follow the rules and come here seeking to work towards the American dream.
Now with respect to securing the borders, I approach this from the perspective of someone who’s spent much of his adult life in law enforcement. It makes utterly no sense that we don’t know who’s coming into this country. We don’t know the criminal backgrounds. Our borders are largely unsecured. And particularly in a post-9/11 world, that is lunacy. I support any and all possible efforts to secure the border. That includes fences, that includes walls, that includes technology, that includes helicopters, that includes drones, that includes manpower, that includes employment verification, that includes approaching it as a law enforcement priority. And right now, neither party is serious about doing that.
With respect to a path to citizenship or amnesty, I categorically oppose it. And the reason is, I’ve spent a lifetime working to defend the constitution and uphold the rule of law. It is fundamentally unfair and contrary to the rule of law to reward those who break the law. And you know, one of the people it’s most unfair to are those that are following the laws. There are immigrants who wait years and even decades to come here legally. And yet what amnesty programs say is that we’re going to take those that have chosen to break the law, and we’re going to reward them rather than insist that people follow the law. I don’t think that’s fair, I don’t think that’s right, and I don’t support it.
Even then Cruz was strongly opposed to Amnesty and illegal immigration, despite The Donald’s claims. Cruz hasn’t changed his positions.
In fact, do you know who supported a wall on the southern border before Donald Trump? TED CRUZ did way back in 2012:
So I point all this out to prove that The Donald is lying about Ted Cruz once again. Trumpertantrum has the audacity to call Cruz a liar when he is the biggest liar on stage.