Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, said President Obama’s move to shield nearly 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation is “just dangerous” for anyone concerned about liberty.
“You know, one of the groups most hurt by what the president did this week are legal immigrants — people who’ve waited years, paid thousands of dollars, who followed the rules,” Mr. Cruz said Monday on “Fox and Friends.” “And the president said, never mind that. What we’re going to do instead is we’re going to open the doors — this action is going to lead to more illegal immigration, which is going to hurt legal immigrants. It’s going to hurt African-Americans. It’s going to hurt working men and women. And for anyone concerned about liberty, it’s just dangerous.”
Under Mr. Obama’s plan, illegal immigrants who have been in the country at least five years and have a child who is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident can apply for legal status.
Mr. Cruz, who is calling for Senate Republicans to halt Mr. Obama’s nominees next year except critical national security appointments as long as the immigration policy is in place, said “you’d have to debate” whether the attorney general falls into that category. Mr. Obama has put forward U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch as his pick to replace outgoing Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.
“What I will say is that no attorney general should be confirmed, unless that attorney general makes perfectly clear that they’re not willing to be a part of this illegal and unconstitutional action,” Mr. Cruz said.
Mr. Cruz also warned liberals who might like the policy that Mr. Obama won’t be president forever.
“If the president has the ability to announce, ’I’m not going to enforce federal immigration laws, because I disagree with them,’ then the president has the same power to say, ’I’m not going to enforce tax laws or labor laws or environmental laws,’” Mr. Cruz said. “That’s dangerous — it’s why we have a constitution.”
For his part, Mr. Obama said it’s “absolutely not” legitimate for a future president to extend that argument to items like taxes.
“But what is true — what is true today is we don’t audit every single person, but we still expect that people are going to go ahead and follow the law,” Mr. Obama said in an interview for ABC’s “This Week.” “And we have limited resources, we have to make sure that we prioritize those folks who are most dangerous and we should acknowledge what everybody has already acknowledged through their actions — and Congress acknowledges through their budget — which is we’re not in the business of deporting millions of people or breaking up families.”
Mr. Cruz is also calling on Congress to use the power of the purse to block the president’s ability to take action on the issue. That could raise the prospect of a shutdown of the federal government, which Republican leaders in Congress want to avoid.
But Mr. Cruz said that “the only one talking about a shutdown is the president. The president wants to talk about that.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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