During an appearance on Fox News Tuesday night, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) repeatedly declined to answer host Megyn Kelly’s question about birthright citizenship and deportation of undocumented immigrants.
Kelly asked Cruz, who has recently backed ending birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants, whether he believes that the 14th Amendment does not guarantee citizenship to those born in America or if he thinks the Constitution would need to be amended.
Cruz responded by noting that scholars disagree on whether Congress could make a change to birthright citizenship by statute, or whether it would require a constitutional amendment.
“My view is we should pursue either or both, whichever is effective,” he said. “What matters, is that we should change the policy so we’re not rewarding, and incentivizing, and encouraging more illegal immigration.”
Kelly challenged Cruz, noting that in 2011 he said that birthright citizenship is guaranteed in the Constitution.
The Fox host then asked, “if you have a husband and a wife who are illegal immigrants, and they have two children who are here, who are American citizens, would you deport all of them? Would you deport the American citizen children?”
Cruz did not answer, and instead explained his proposed approach to immigration.
“So, Megyn, what I’ve said is that we should approach immigration in a staged manner. We should start with focusing on areas of bipartisan agreement, ” he said.
Kelly attempted two more times to get an answer out of Cruz, telling him that he was “dodging” the question and that Trump has not problem answering a similar question.
“Megyn, I get that that’s the question you want to ask, that’s also the question every mainstream media liberal journalist wants to ask,” Cruz told Kelly.
“Is it an unfair question?” she hit back.
“It is a distraction from how we actually solve the problem,” Cruz replied. “You know, it’s also the question Barack Obama wants to focus on.”
Watch the exchange via Fox News:
