The News with Sen. Cruz - June 26, 2013

Greetings,

Last week was eventful in our nation's battle to reform immigration. The current proposal before the Senate has serious problems, and unfortunately, I believe it would simply be a repeat of the 1986 amnesty where we were promised border security for legalization. But the border security never came.

Our immigration system is broken. It is critical that we fix it, secure the border, respect the rule of law, and remain a nation that not only welcomes, but also celebrates legal immigrants. Please keep reading for more details and then share this newsletter with your Facebook friends and Twitter followers.

All the best,

Ted Cruz

STOPPING THE AMNESTY TAX

Yesterday, Sen. Cruz addressed the Senate floor to expose a component of the Gang of Eight Bill that establishes a penalty for hiring citizens and legal immigrants over immigrants granted Registered Provisional Immigrant (RPI) status under this legislation.

He asked for unanimous consent to introduce an amendment that would fix this issue by defunding Obamacare until there are no more individuals with RPI status. But the Senate Democrat majority blocked his request. Watch and share video of the Senator's floor remarks.

WILL THE IMMIGRATION BILL BE THE NEXT OBAMACARE?

On Monday, Sen. Cruz addressed the Senate floor to contrast the border measures in the Corker-Hoeven amendment to a border security amendment he filed last week, citing areas where the Corker-Hoeven amendment to S.744 fails to adequately secure the border before legalization of illegal immigrants begins. Sen. Cruz is deeply troubled by the way this bill has progressed through the Senate -- eerily reminiscent of the way Obamacare was passed.

The point Sen. Cruz made was very simple: "What is the rush?" Just as with Obamacare, we are told that we have to pass the bill to find out what is in it. The American people deserve adequate time to study and understand what is in the bill. Unfortunately, it appears this bill is about providing political cover rather than actually fixing our nation's broken immigration system or finally securing our border.

As a preview to the vote to end debate on the Corker-Hoeven amendment, Sen. Cruz wrote in RedState to outline the many problems with the proposal, including: it grants immediate amnesty with an empty promise of border security, it provides no real border security at all, it weakens border fencing problems, it avoids any metric for measuring true border security, and more. Read and share it here.

ATTEMPTS TO IMPROVE THE IMMIGRATION BILL

Last Wednesday, Sen. Cruz took to the Senate floor to critique the Gang of Eight's immigration deal. Sen. Cruz noted that the Gang of Eight deal fails to meaningfully secure our border and would lead to a repeat of the 1986 amnesty in which the American people were promised illegal immigration would be stopped in exchange for granting amnesty to some three million people living in the United States illegally. The amnesty happened, but unfortunately, the border security never did. We can't afford to do that again.

In response, Sen. Cruz introduced several amendments to the immigration bill to significantly improve border security measures, fix our immigration system in a manner that champions legal immigration, and uphold the rule of law by ensuring illegal immigrants granted legal status under this bill are not given a path to citizenship.

Sen. Cruz will continue to fight to pass commonsense immigration reform, but he fears that if this bill becomes law as it is currently written, it will not solve the problem, but instead make the problem of illegal immigration worse.

CONCERNS OVER SYRIA

On Thursday, Sen. Cruz addressed the Senate floor to voice his concerns about U.S. plans to supply arms to Syrian rebel groups and criticize the Obama Administration's failure to engage at the beginning of the uprising, when peaceful protestors could have used the vocal, energetic support of the United States. Because of that failure, the U.S. has since lost its opportunity to have meaningful influence over the situation in a manner that would serve our nation's best interest.

Now the situation in Syria is very serious -- 93,000 are dead, millions have been displaced and the government has used chemical weapons on its own people, and the most effective, organized rebels are loyal to al Qaida. Sen. Cruz believes the U.S. should not provide arms to groups that are loyal to our enemies, but we should develop a clear, practical plan to go in, locate the weapons which have become a grave national security threat, secure or destroy them, and then get out.

ABOLISH THE IRS

Last week, Sen. Cruz joined a rally to abolish the IRS. Watch video of his remarks here and then share with your friends.