Cruz raises stakes in Republican rush to target immigrants
IF Donald Trump thinks that America’s doors should be closed to Muslim refugees, his main rival is dubious about those who are already here.
Senator Ted Cruz has tried to outtough his opponents in the Republican war over immigration by urging “retroactive” checks on all refugees from “high-risk countries”.
Mr Cruz has spent the last week criss-crossing a frozen Iowa in a bus painted with the slogan: “The Courageous Crusader”. On Feb 1, Iowa will be the first state to vote in the lengthy battle for the Republican nomination.
The Texas senator is trying to convince voters he would take an even more hard line than Mr Trump. His latest idea goes further than that of any other presidential contender.
On the campaign trail in Iowa, Mr Cruz said the retroactive checks would look at “what communications, what statements have they [immigrants] made? What actions have they done?”
‘President Obama may have a pen. Well, you live by the pen, you die by the pen. And my pen has an eraser’
Mr Cruz’s plan might have been prompted by the arrest in his home state of a refugee from Iraq. Omar Faraj Saeed al-Hardan, 24, has since been charged with trying to support Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
Like Mr Trump, Mr Cruz would also build a wall along the US-Mexico border and deport all 12million illegal immigrants believed to be in the country.
And — unlike Mr Trump — Mr Cruz would not let the deportees back in again even if they applied legally.
At a public meeting in the tiny Iowan town of Storm Lake, Mr Cruz was confronted by one of the people he plans to eject. Ofelia Valdez, 30, was brought across the border from Mexico by her parents when she was a child.
She had lived more than half her life in Storm Lake and works for a charity helping children with special needs. “I feel part of this community,” said Miss Valdez, her voice breaking nervously. “But, the first day of your presidency, you will deport people like myself.”
At such an awkward moment, many politicians might have flinched or dissembled, but not Mr Cruz. He looked Miss Valdez in the eye and told her: under a Cruz presidency, she was going back to Mexico. “One of the problems with our broken immigration system is it has created human tragedies,” he said. “You were brought here illegally and violating the law has consequences.”
The crowd of around 100 people responded with applause.
Outside, Miss Valdez looked tearful as she contemplated the consequences if Mr Cruz should win. She told The
Sunday Telegraph: “I’m worried. I know lots of people in the same situation as myself. What’s going to happen to us, our jobs, our families?”
Miss Valdez’s experience had echoes of the fate of Rose Hamid, a Muslim who rose in silent protest in the middle of one of Mr Trump’s rallies on Friday. She was immediately escorted out.
But, as the applause showed, Mr Cruz’s stance on immigration has struck a chord in Iowa.
When he arrived at another venue, the Pizza Ranch restaurant in the snowcovered town of Pocahontas, it was standing room only. “There must have been 300 plus people here. For Pocahontas that’s insane,” said Michael Ryan, the local Republican chairman.
It may not sound much compared with the thousands attending Trump rallies, but venues like the Pizza Ranch are where the Iowa election is won. And they are not the kind of places that Mr Trump deigns to visit.
The two are neck and neck in Iowa. But Mr Cruz believes his religious faith will help him in a state with an abundance of evangelical Christians.
He hopes that winning Iowa will then trigger an “awakening” of America’s 90million evangelicals, propelling him to the nomination and ultimately the White House.
“We are going to to energise and motivate and awaken the body of Christ,” Mr Cruz told his audience at the Pizza Ranch.
One elderly woman in the crowd shouted “Amen”. A young lady fainted and fell off a chair unconscious. Rather than succumbing to religious rapture, it turned out she had been standing too near a hot pizza warmer.
But there was no doubt his message hit home. “When it’s time to vote, I just say a prayer and the right name comes into my head,” said Janice Dornath, 71, a lifelong Iowa resident in the crowd.
Mr Cruz’s challenge will be to ensure people like Mrs Dornath actually vote.
Temperatures on caucus night will be well below zero as voters in 1,774 precincts congregate in gyms, church basements, fire stations and libraries.
Mr Cruz’s army of 9,000 volunteers will fan out across the state, armed with smartphone apps designed to find isolated homes and deliver residents to join the caucus. Mr Trump has boasted of having an “incredible ground game” in Iowa – but there are few signs of it actually existing.
However, it is fair to say the Republican establishment in Washington does not regard Mr Cruz as “our guy”. John McCain, the 2008 Republican nominee, has called him a “wacko bird”. Others have said worse.
But Mr Cruz believes that choosing moderate candidates like Mr McCain, and Mitt Romney in 2012, is what cost the Republicans the White House and argues the votes of millions of evangelical Christians helped George W Bush to victory in 2004.
If elected, Mr Cruz would effectively try to turn the clock back to the end of Mr Bush’s tenure, reversing everything done by Barack Obama. “President Obama may have a pen,” he said. “Well, you live by the pen, you die by the pen. And my pen has an eraser.”