Ted Cruz is trying to take the lead on this child separation issue at the border with this new legislation and is weighing in on it quite a bit.
In this one brief interview Ted Cruz says that child separation has to stop and explains how he’s trying to do that with his new legislation:
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz promises a bill to deal with the family separation crisis at the border https://t.co/5IW8ZeRaUM pic.twitter.com/rE5F4y0wE5
— TIME (@TIME) June 19, 2018
Cruz says the same thing here in this longer clip, but elaborates more on the issue as he explains how this issue isn’t new:
Saying he's "horrified" by images of separated families, Sen. Ted Cruz says his proposed legislation will "enforce the law" while keeping families together.
He criticizes the Democratic proposal as a "return to catch and release." https://t.co/QYLjY6unq9 pic.twitter.com/Ft7I1z74z2
— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) June 19, 2018
I like several things about this clip. Cruz explains how in 2013 he was visiting child detention centers at the border under the Obama administration – you know, back when nobody cared about this issue.
He further explains that both Democrats and Republicans want families to stay together in their competing bills right now. But the difference is, according to Cruz, that Democrats want the Trump administration just to release these illegal families into the US, going back to the dangerous Obama policy of catch and release. The bill Cruz is pushing allows families to stay together AND immigration law to be enforced.
I know the clips leave you wanting more at the end, but I couldn’t find their longer versions.
But I did find this from Cruz. Fox News talks about Cruz’s bill and plays the clip at the top of this post in the video. But what I found interesting was that Lindsey Graham seems to be a backer of Cruz’s bill, saying in this video that while the Democrats may not accept every word of Cruz’s bill, he’s got an idea that most Republicans would support. That’s a good sign!