Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) slammed his rival, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, on Friday for bringing up Cruz’s own citizenship while discussing whether children born to immigrants should automatically become U.S. citizens.
Cruz told reporters at the Iowa State Fair that Bush was “confused” over the difference between illegal and legal immigration when discussing Cruz’s biography, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Bush had said earlier this week that both Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) benefited from “birthright citizenship,” which is citizenship that is automatically granted to babies when they are born in the United States — regardless of the citizenship status of their parents.
The topic of birthright citizenship and whether the right should be revoked has been widely discussed by the 2016 Republican hopefuls in recent days.
“If people are here legally, they have a visa, and they have a child who’s born here, I think that they ought to be American citizens,” Bush said, according to the publication. “People like Marco Rubio, by the way, that’s how he came. You know, so to suggest that we make it impossible for a talented person like that not to be a candidate for president — or Ted Cruz. I mean, I think we’re getting a little overboard here, and we’re listening to the emotion rather than to the reality of this.”
On Friday in Iowa, Cruz hit back at Bush.
“I appreciate Gov. Bush’s concern. It seems he’s having a problem and getting confused between legal immigration and illegal immigration,” Cruz said, according to the newspaper.
“I am a United States citizen because my mother was a United States citizen, born in Wilmington, Delaware. And it has been the law since the beginning of country that the children of American citizens born here or abroad are American citizens by birth,” he said, according to the publication.
