Cruz Warns Obama’s ‘Amnesty’ Is Unfair To African Americans

Steve King, Louie Gohmert, Michele Bachmann, and Ted Cruz at event voicing opposition to Obama's executive action on immigration.
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Four of the tea party’s favorite elected members of Congress held a press conference urging their party to go all out to fight President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration, which hurts Americans, particularly African-Americans.

“Just about every Republican candidate in the country campaigned saying ‘if you elect us we will stop President Obama’s amnesty,'” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), standing next to Reps. Steve King (R-IA), Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said. “What I’m here urging my fellow Republicans to do is very very simple: Do what you said you were going to do.”

Cruz said that when Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) becomes Senate majority leader in January at the beginning of the 114th Congress, he should block key presidential nominees outside of certain national security positions.

“The incoming Senate Majority Leader should announce that if President Obama proceeds with this illegal amnesty, not a single presidential nominee — executive or judicial — will be confirmed, other than vital national security positions,” Cruz said. “That is an explicit power given to the United States Senate, by the Constitution, in order to reign in an out of control executive.”

The junior senator from Texas argued that Obama’s move to reform the nation’s immigration system was actually hurting wide swaths of Americans.

“Amnesty is fundamentally unfair to the millions of legal immigrants who followed the rules and came here legally,” Cruz said. “Amnesty is fundamentally unfair to the 92 Americans who aren’t working here right now. Amnesty is fundamentally unfair to the African American community that’s facing historic unemployment.”

Cruz has actually previously argued that Republicans should use executive and judicial nominations as leverage to try and make Obama reverse course on the executive action. Cruz has also predicted that Obama would cause a shutdown over the executive action.

Latest Livewire

Notable Replies

  1. How’s about WalMart’s race-to-the-bottom wages? Are they harmful to the people working here now too?

  2. Four of the most useless pieces of carbon on the planet.

  3. A sane, polite, self aware person wouldn’t want to be seen sharing a podium with King, Bachmann & Gohmert. Why would anyone actually want to be the Fourth Stooge?

  4. I’m sure African Americans across the nation will sleep better tonight knowing that Ted Cruz has their interests at heart and is looking out for them.

  5. Avatar for vonq vonq says:

    And responding by shutting down the govt won’t hurt any demographic, right?

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

28 more replies

Participants

Avatar for system1 Avatar for ratesanalyst Avatar for lestatdelc Avatar for bmcchgo Avatar for blue_grit Avatar for epicurus Avatar for vonq Avatar for arrrrrj Avatar for trumpdog Avatar for boscobrown Avatar for sniffit Avatar for jimellis Avatar for sonsofares Avatar for sarenarterius Avatar for mongoose Avatar for railbird Avatar for suicide_arsonist Avatar for occamsrazor2 Avatar for ejoyce Avatar for jinmichigan Avatar for stevieD Avatar for 62fender Avatar for earthquakeweather Avatar for readerfromcalif

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: