The Monitor - Cruz to Introduce Another Border Crisis Bill

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By Jacob Fischler

Ted Cruz wants to handle the influx of Central American immigrants his own way.
Texas' junior U.S. senator said between tours of Border Patrol facilities and Sacred Heart Church on Saturday he planned to introduce legislation next week to allow for speedy deportations of Central American children and families.

During a news conference and an interview -- following tours of the McAllen Border Patrol station and a still-empty warehouse built to house unaccompanied children who cross through the Rio Grande Valley -- Cruz, a freshman Republican, hammered President Barack Obama for policies the senator said amounted to a "promise of amnesty."

"I met, not just with senior leadership of the Border Patrol, but with a number of the agents who are on the front lines, who are dealing with these issues every day," Cruz said. "And I asked them a very open-ended question: "What is causing this crisis?' Without hesitation, every single agent there said: "They're coming because they believe they'll get amnesty.' That is the cause, and the Obama Administration refuses to acknowledge that because that's politically inconvenient."
A Border Patrol union leader backed up that claim.

"A lot of them are telling us, "If we come, that Obama's going to take care of us' -- that kind of language," said agent Chris Cabrera, the vice president for Local 3307 for the National Border Patrol Council.

Cruz's visit to the Rio Grande Valley came a day after Texas' other senator, Republican Whip John Cornyn, and U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, visited Mission to promote their own bill.

"I wanted to introduce a bill that in one comprehensive piece of legislation included the critical elements necessary to actually solve the problem," Cruz said. "I think Sen. Cornyn, Congressman Cuellar, are being productive, are working to solve the problem, but I don't think their legislation goes far enough. It doesn't address the underlying root cause of this humanitarian crisis, which is the promise of amnesty."

In what an organizer said was coincidental timing, more than a hundred people aligned with a coalition of pro-immigrant groups held a vigil across the street from the Border Patrol station during Cruz's tour of the facility to honor those who died on the arduous journey from Central America to the Valley.

The interfaith ceremony was apolitical, said Daniella Marrero, a media coordinator with the Human Rights Coalition of South Texas. But referring to the immigrants as "refugees," she struck a different tone than Cruz.

"We all had the same beliefs that we need to welcome these people into our country," she said. "These people are escaping the murder capitals of the world. They're escaping the most dangerous countries in the world."

Honduras' murder rate of more than 90.4 per 100,000 residents was the highest in the world in 2012 -- the most recent year for which data is available -- according to a United Nations report. El Salvador and Guatemala ranked fourth and fifth.

"Part of it is going to be violence in their home countries, and that if we come we're going to be allowed to stay," Cabrera said. "It's not one or the other. It's both and the same."

But Cruz insisted Obama bore the brunt of the influx of children and families flooding the Valley. He said the administration benefits politically from blaming the influx on violence in Central America, because it can't control that.

"If it's because of the violence, it's not their fault," he said. "The problem with that explanation is violence can explain why we see an increase in illegal immigration from a particular country, and historically it has.

"But the violence doesn't explain why so many unaccompanied children are coming. That is a different phenomenon."

The blame for that, he said, lies with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a memorandum issued by former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano that gives some immigrants brought into the country illegally as children temporary legal status.

Cruz called that action "amnesty" several times Saturday, and on Friday he introduced a bill to immediately end any new applicants -- or anyone appealing a previously denied application -- from receiving DACA benefits.

Cuellar described his bipartisan partnership with Cornyn as an effort filled with compromise in order to pass the Republican-controlled House and the Democrat-controlled Senate.

"It's got to be like threading the needle," Cuellar said. "We've got to have enough D's and R's who can accept both things. We're going to lose the far left and the far right."

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