Amanda Carpenter wrote a great piece this morning explaining in more detail Cruz’s opposition to the Gang of 8 bill and the subsequent amendment that he offered that Rubio and crew are trying to deceive people about.
What Carpenter points out is that Cruz didn’t actually propose legalization because it was already in the bill. His amendment merely stripped out the path to citizenship portion that was also part of the bill:
CONSERVATIVE REVIEW – Marco Rubio supported a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants; that is known. And Rubio is now seeking to undermine Ted Cruz’s credibility on immigration issues by saying Cruz supports a path to legalization for illegal immigrants.
So, who to believe? Rubio, whose campaign is working hard to knock holes in Cruz’s record, or the record of the man himself?
At the top level, this much should be clear to anyone. Rubio’s Gang of Eight legislation, which included a path to citizenship and was supported by many Democrats, the White House, and moderate Republicans, was defeated. Why? Because Ted Cruz and others, such as Jeff Sessions, Mike Lee, and a vast array of conservative activists worked together to expose the fact that it was an amnesty bill and kill it.
Rubio was for it, Cruz was against it.
People forget that the Gang of Eight bill contained both legalization and a path to citizenship. The key to taking down the bill was to demonstrate it would provide citizenship to millions of illegal aliens. Which also took down the path to legalization that Rubio claims Cruz wanted all along.
In the course of killing the bill, Cruz proposed a series of amendments in committee designed to make clear the legislation did contain a path to citizenship, which many supporters of the legislation did not want to admit.
One of Cruz’s amendments proposed stripping out the citizenship plank, leaving the legalization plank in place.
This was done precisely so the proponents of citizenship would vote against it, showing they were in fact insisting on citizenship in their legislation. But now, the Rubio camp is telling folks that because Cruz’s amendment only attacked citizenship, but not legalization, Cruz supports legalization. This is a stretch.
In his speech, asking other senators to support his amendment, Cruz said, “I would urge everyone on this committee to roll up our sleeves and fix the problem in a humane way that secures the border, gets serious about fixing that problem, that expands and improves legal immigration and that does not unfairly treat legal immigrants by removing a path to citizenship but allowing as this legislation does a legal status for those who are here illegally.”
The operative part of this statement is “removing a path to citizenship.”
That does not mean Cruz was supporting legalization at the time. It means the amendment strategy was focused only on the most controversial part of the bill, the citizenship plank.
Silence on the legalization plank is not support.