Three small words uttered at Wednesday night’s Republican presidential debate stirred conservative concerns that Republican president candidate Ted Cruz, R-Texas, might be leaving the door open to granting legal status to America’s millions of illegal immigrants.
During one part of their back-and-forth exchange over immigration, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., hit Cruz with a dare on the subject of whether Cruz would support legalization for illegal immigrants currently in the United States.
“I have never supported legalization, and I do not intend to support legalization,” Cruz said.
“And let me tell you how you do this, what you do, is you enforce the law. I’ve laid out a very, very detailed immigration plan on my website, tedcruz.org it’s 11 pages, existing federal law, and in particular the question of what to do with people who are here now, you enforce the law. That means you stop the Obama administration’s policy of releasing criminal illegal aliens,” he added.
But the damage was done. The three words “do not intend” became the fodder for concern that blossomed on Twitter.
“‘Do not intend’ from Cruz was very weak language,” wrote Ben Shapiro.
“Cruz’s ‘do not intend’ answer is testament to a truly fine legal education,” chimed in Rich Lowry. “Legalization is such a terrible idea that Cruz doesn’t ‘intend’ to support it.”
“‘I do not intend to favor legalization.’ Cruz slippery here. He did propose it. On camera,” tweeted Guy Benson.
The Rubio campaign fanned the flames with a statement that said, “Senator Cruz supports a path to legalization for illegal immigrants.”
The Cruz camp tried to say what the candidate meant.
Rick Tyler, a campaign spokesman, told CNN that Cruz unequivocally does not support a path to legalization.
h/t: TheBlaze
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