A day after President Trump suggested he would be open to giving Dreamers an eventual path to citizenship in exchange for full border wall funding and other dramatic concessions from the Democrats, his former Republican rival, Sen. Ted Cruz, said he was decidedly NOT on board with any such plan.
“I do not believe we should be granting a path to citizenship to anybody here illegally,” Cruz told reporters. “Doing so is inconsistent with the promises we made to the men and women who elected us.”
Cruz didn’t specifically go after the president, but there’s no doubt that the Texas conservative is relishing the chance to highlight one of his biggest arguments during the campaign: That when it came to illegal immigration, Trump was a con man willing to say or do anything to get the nomination, while Ted was the real deal who would deliver on his promises.
Of course, the question currently circulating like wildfire among fans of Trump’s hardline immigration stance is whether or not this represents a true retreat. Is Trump getting ready to betray the millions of Americans who voted for him on the premise that he would not fall for the same amnesty-flavored immigration deals that entranced so many of his Republican predecessors? Or is he simply using this amnesty offer as a way to prove that Democrats will accept NOTHING if it means they have to pony up money for the border wall?
To be sure, Trump’s remarks on Wednesday seemed tailor-made to inspire another round of MAGA hat burnings from some of his supporters. “It’s going to happen at some point in the future, over a period of 10-12 years,” the president said of citizenship. “I think it’s a nice thing to have the incentive of after a period of years being able to become a citizen.”
Cruz, on the other hand, said that he was baffled by Republicans – many of whom publicly opposed Obama’s DACA order when it was first unveiled – who were now trying to do anything and everything they could to make sure those Dreamers were protected from deportation.
“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,” Cruz said. “We need to honor the promises we made. And that is what I am energetically urging my colleagues to do.”
We’re going to adopt a wait-and-see attitude on the president’s negotiations. Sites like Breitbart are jumping the gun in their “BETRAYAL” pieces as far as we’re concerned. Or perhaps they can put forth a politician who will even be harder on illegal immigration than Trump…who also stands a snowball’s chance in hell of getting elected President of the United States? There comes a point where the idealism needs to meet reality. And the reality, as far as we can see right now, is that Trump is offering an imperfect deal that would nonetheless do more to stop illegal immigration (and nation-killing forms of legal immigration) than anything any president has proposed in modern history.
You can wait for the rest of your life for that PERFECT solution to all of your grievances, but what’s going to happen to our country while you’re sitting back in the peanut gallery, griping and complaining? Less-than-ideal action is 100% better than ideal fantasy.
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