Texas Sen. Ted Cruz took a new shot at Vice President Kamala Harris as he closed his reelection campaign, saying that, should she win this year's presidential race, the undocumented immigrant population in the United States will double as a result of what he described as lax border policies.
For the past year, former President Donald Trump and other high-profile Republicans have made of anti-immigrant rhetoric one of the main talking points of their campaigns, as the topic has become critical for many voters ahead of the 2024 elections, especially those supporting the GOP.
Cruz, who is facing Democrat Colin Allred as he seeks to keep his senate seat, has hammered on the issue throughout the campaign, saying Democrats and at the Biden-Harris administration have "encouraged" and "facilitated" illegal immigration into the U.S.
During the latest episode of his Verdict podcast, Cruz went as far to claim that numbers of undocumented immigrants would skyrocket under another Democrat administration.
"If Kamala wins, god help us, the numbers will skyrocket," Cruz said. "We have seen 11.5 million people in the last four years. If Kamala is president for another four years, 11.5 will become 25 or 30 million. That is their objective: to invade this country with what they see as future Democrat voters."
Cruz also finished his campaign with stops in the border cities of El Paso and McAllen, saying unlawful border crossings are "the worst invasion in our nation's history."
He told attendees that "coming to El Paso and telling you about the border is a little bit like going to Noah and telling you about the flood — you know!" And at a burger restaurant in McAllen he said Allred supports what he described as the Biden administration's "open borders" policies.
And at a burger restaurant in McAllen, Cruz said Allred supports what he described as the Biden administration's "open borders" policies. He also took on his opponent for his voting record on oil and gas. "I have spent 12 years as the leading defender of oil and gas in the United States Senate," Cruz said in the rally, in which he was joined by conservative commentator Ben Shapiro.
The latest report on the issue by the Pew Research Center says the undocumented population has likely grown over the past two years, as encounters along the U.S. borders reached record levels in recent months, but not to the extent Cruz claims it will.
Between 2021 and 2022, the undocumented immigrant population in the U.S. grew from 10.5 to 11 million, the Pew Research said, reversing a long-term downward trend from 2007 to 2019. And although a record number of encounters plus those paroled into the U.S. through federal programs are expected to further increase in the population, Cruz comments can be misleading, as he relied on a misinterpretation of migrant "encounters."
During the Biden administration, U.S. Customs and Border Protection have recorded more than 10.8 million encounters of migrants along the U.S. borders. Fiscal Year 2024 saw a decrease of almost 300,000 encounters compared to 2023, when the Biden administration reached over 3.2 million encounters nationwide.
Cruz said that, if elected, Trump would work to decrease the number of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. since day one.
"This is not going to take a year, I don't even believe it's going to take six months," he said. "This will happen in January and February of next year," Cruz said in his podcast.
He added that Trump would also put an end to catch a release, a practice of releasing certain migrants apprehended by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security pending their immigration court proceedings.
"Why? Because the single most important determinant of illegal immigration is one single question – it's a policy question – what happens when an illegal immigrant is apprehended?" Cruz said. "If the answer is they're put on a plane and sent home, the numbers plummet."
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