Upon hearing of the murders in Brussels, Ted Cruz took to Facebook and, after expressing sympathy for the victims, politicized the attacks, maintaining "Radical Islam is at war with us. For over seven years we have had a president who refuses to acknowledge this reality."
More ominously, he later issued a statement which read in part
We need to immediately halt the flow of refugees from countries with a significant al Qaida or ISIS presence. We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized.
We need to secure the southern border to prevent terrorist infiltration. And we need to execute a coherent campaign to utterly destroy ISIS. The days of the United States voluntarily surrendering to the enemy to show how progressive and enlightened we are at an end. Our country is at stake.
The Texas Senator's declaration "our country is at stake" is a long step backward from President Roosevelt's declaration "we have nothing to fear but fear itself." He conflates terrorism and immigration and advocates a path to dividing Americans by religion, a clear rebuke of the First Amendment.
When the crafty Cruz issues his prescription for terrorism- take two anti-immigration pills and go to bed scared- it bears a similarity to the immigration policy laid out by the officially designated "moderate" in the race. With Marco Rubio gone, John Kasich has become the media's favorite as the reasonable alternative to the blustery, belligerent Donald Trump. He didn't disappoint Establishment centrists last weekend, stating on Fox News Sunday
My position has not changed. The idea that we're going to go into communities and yank people out of their homes and leave their kids on the porch crying, that's not what we're going to do. That's -- that's just -- that's more promises that will never happen, and the people will become more cynical. I don't make promises, by and large, that I can't keep. I try to keep what I say. And I - I'm not deviated from this position at all.
How compassionate not to leave kids on the porch crying. Yet, the Ohio governor maintained also
We should have a guest worker program. And for the 11.5 million who are here illegally, if they've not committed a crime since they've been here, I would give them a path to legalization where they pay a fine, back taxes, delay in any kind of benefits they get. I think is a reasonable approach, but not a path to citizenship.
They get to obey our laws faithfully (which is more than many citizens do) pay back taxes, pay a fine, and be denied (for a time, maybe longer) benefits, and their reward is to be denied citizenship. They are entitled, moreover, to be treated like second-class citizens- or rather, not as citizens at all.
And so is the immigration plan of the right-winger in moderate sheep's clothing akin to the terrorist control policy, an adjunct to his immigration policy, of extremist Ted Cruz.
There is no better way of creating terrorists from among Americans than to convince them that they are not Americans, or at least are not so considered. And there is no better way to do that than to designate some neighborhoods or towns as "Muslim" and to impose a regimen of surveillance and policing devised specifically for them. Donald Trump says he supports the Senator's notion "100%."
Immigrants, most from central America, are unlikely to be terrorists, which Republicans conflating terrorism and immigration are loathe to acknowledge. Still, a path to legalization without citizenship is a formula for creating a two-tiered socio-economic system and wealth inequality second to none. Fortunately for those immigrants, most are from south of the border and able to return home when the price of being "legalized" grows greater than the value of having some minimal employment in the USA. For the others of inferior social status (legalized) the inability to achieve citizenship would prove devastating for them- and ultimately for the nation. So much for the American dream of mobility- if born outside the country, there is no need to apply.
The proposals of Kasich and Cruz are analogous. Further, front-runner Donald Trump has proposed establishing an inventory of Muslims in the USA and building a border wall, higher and higher in the style of the Tower of Babel. A leader in hiring illegal immigrants and exploiting guest workers, Trump would be all in on the Cruz-Kasich approach were he to be elected President. For the remaining GOP presidential candidates, Mexicans, Muslims, and other individuals foreign-born can remain. They can be in the country, but not of the nation, and not truly part of the nation- not ever, no way.
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