“I do not believe we should be granting a path to citizenship to anybody here illegally. Doing so is inconsistent with the promises we made to the men and women who elected us,” Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Thursday, in an apparent response to remarks made by President Donald Trump that he was open to the “Dreamers” (illegal aliens brought to America by their parents and who are now adults) obtaining citizenship eventually.
Cruz did not mention Trump by name, but there is no doubt that he was voicing the concern shared by many of the men and women who supported Trump in the last presidential election.
Cruz was Trump’s strongest opponent for the Republican Party nomination in the 2016 campaign. While both candidates made opposition to amnesty and stopping illegal immigration part of their platforms, Trump appeared to get an edge over Cruz and other Republican hopefuls by promising to not only build a wall on the southern border, but to make Mexico pay for it.
Instead it appears that, if any wall or portion of a wall is ever constructed, it will be the American taxpayer, not the nation of Mexico that will pay for all of it.
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was an executive order by then-President Barack Obama to not attempt to deport any illegal alien who had been brought to the country by their parents as a young child. Despite Obama saying earlier in his time in office that he had no legal authority to make such an order — this needed legislation by Congress — he later changed his stance, saying he had no choice but to act, since Congress had failed to do so.
Of course, the Constitution gives legislative power to Congress, not the president. The fact that Congress refuses to take action is in itself an action. It is their prerogative to not act on this or any other issue. What Obama did was clearly unconstitutional, and Trump’s action to reverse the order was not only legal, but it was also being faithful to carry out the law, as required by the Constitution.
When Obama issued DACA, he admitted it was a temporary stop-gap until Congress took action to develop a permanent solution. In his order, he only granted permission for DACA “Dreamers” to remain in the country. He did not propose to make them citizens.
Yet Trump told reporters on Wednesday that citizenship could be granted to the Dreamers “at some point in the future, over a period of 10-12 years,” adding, “I think it’s a nice thing to have the incentive of after a period of years being able to become a citizen.”
Cruz, however, noted that the Obama DACA program did not envision actual U.S. citizenship for this large group of illegal aliens, stating, “For some reason that to me is utterly inexplicable, we see Republicans falling all over themselves to gallop to the left of Obama in a way that is contrary to the promises made to the voters who elected us. We need to honor the promises we made. And that is what I am energetically urging my colleagues to do.” (Emphasis added.)
Unfortunately, far too many of Cruz’s “colleagues,” Democrat and Republican, seem determined to give amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens — a course that will only invite more violations of America’s immigration laws in the future. It is certainly not what Trump’s voters thought they were getting by choosing him over his 16 fellow Republicans in 2016.
For its part, Breitbart, which went to the mat for Trump in the Republican contest in 2016, is now referring to him as “Amnesty Don.” In fact, they argued, “Whether it’s rolling back regulations, the tax bill, or appointing Neil Gorsuch, there isn’t a thing he’s done that isn’t what would have been done by just about any other Republican [whom] voters had available to choose from during the primaries.”
In fairness to Trump, while Ted Cruz would have almost certainly done those things, it is not as certain that he would have announced a U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord as has Trump, or taken as hard a line as Trump did against multilateral trade treaties. Trump has remained strong on those issues.
At least so far.
Hopefully, Cruz’s remarks on this issue, though, will be heard by Trump — and heeded.
Photo: AP Images
