Elections

Santorum: Cruz Is Weak On Immigration

Scott Greer Contributor
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Former Pennsylvania senator and Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum slammed Texas Senator Ted Cruz for having a weak position on immigration Monday.

During a speech given at the Davenport County, Iowa Republican Party headquarters, Santorum criticized political leaders of both parties for backing increases in immigration, and singled out Cruz in particular.

“It’s not just the Democrats. It’s Democrats and Republicans,” Santorum said of immigration supporters, according to the Quad-City Times. “It’s Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush and, yes, it’s Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz wants to take the H-1B program and increase it by 500 percent. He wants to go from 65,000 to 330,000. Again, ‘Mr. Conservative.’ Everybody [says] how conservative he is. He wants to increase it by five times.”

Santorum is referring to Cruz’s pledge to increase H-1B visas by “500 percent.”

One of the former Pennsylvania senator’s major campaign items is a promise to reduce immigration across the board and crack down on illegal immigration. In his bid for the presidency, Cruz is also touting his credentials in fighting against legislation aimed at legalizing illegal aliens, but has so far indicated no interest in reducing legal immigration.

Santorum — while critical of Cruz on immigration — praised him for being willing to filibuster bad legislation in the Senate in the Monday talk.

However, the Texas senator is outpacing the 2012 primary runner-up in the polls. According to the latest RealClearPolitics average, Cruz sits at seven percent nationally while Santorum is languishing at 0.4 percent.

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