Plan B Forum

Ted Cruz: deporting DREAMers is my "top priority"

Updated by Matthew Yglesias on July 16, 2014, 10:16 p.m. ET @mattyglesias matt@vox.com

As best as anyone can tell, the child migrant crisis is playing perfectly into the hands of conservatives in congress — it's making Obama look bad while pushing Democrats off their immigration reform message. Then along comes Ted Cruz to ruin it all with a plan reported by Manu Raju and Burgess Everett to link any new funding to deal with the situation to deporting DREAMers — kids who came to the US years ago, grew up here, and are now being protected from deportation by Obama administration executive action.

Catherine Frazier, a spokesperson for Cruz, describes ending the deferred action plan as his "top priority."


Of course one senator taking an eccentric stand needn't have major political implications. But this is essentially how last fall's government shutdown got started. Cruz floated the idea that Republicans should refuse to fund the government unless the White House agreed to repeal Obamacare. Most Republican members of congress thought that was unworkable and politically unwise. But once the idea gained traction in the conservative media, nobody wanted to take the RINO stand of breaking with Cruz out of political timidity. Next thing you know the whole caucus was stampeding off the cliff.

Obama's deferred action (and its legislative predecessor, the DREAM Act) has always polled well. There's likely nothing Democrats would rather do than shift the conversation onto that terrain, while simultaneously allowing them to argue that it's Republicans who are distracting attention from the crisis of the moment.

But Cruz isn't necessarily interested in what's best for his caucus. He's interested in what's best for driving Cruz's influence inside the caucus. And that means finding new fights to pick beyond the ones the party leadership is interested in.
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What is the DREAM Act?

The DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act was a proposed federal law that would cover young adults aged 15 to 29 who came into the country as children and have gone to college or served in the military. It would give these DREAMers legal status and allow them to apply for citizenship eventually.

The DREAM Act was first proposed in 2003 and last came up for a vote in 2010 — it passed the House but was blocked in the Senate by a Republican filibuster. Comprehensive immigration reform bills (such as the 2006 and 2007 bills proposed under President Bush, as well as the Senate immigration bill passed last year) contain a section that allows DREAMers to obtain legal status and eventual citizenship more quickly than other unauthorized immigrants.

As of May 2014, 21 states have their own DREAM Act laws that would grant in-state tuition at public colleges to undocumented immigrants who have grown up in the state. These are different from the federal DREAM Act, since states can't grant legal status or citizenship to undocumented immigrants.

In 2012, President Obama launched the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allowed DREAMers to apply for work permits and protection from deportation. This is often mistakenly referred to as Obama implementing the DREAM Act, but it isn't as permanent as the DREAM Act would have been, since immigrants have to re-apply every two years.

Sue U wrote:Somewhat ironic, since Cruz is himself a Cuban-Canadian brought to the U.S. as a child.

But I prefer to think of him as merely a douchebag.

Oh yeah, by all means, GOP, follow Ted Cruz's advice! That worked out so well for you last year!

I prefer to think of him as merely a douchebag