Ted Cruz to Introduce First GOP Bill To Keep Migrant Families Together: ‘All Americans Are Rightly Horrified’
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) is bringing emergency legislation before Congress tonight in order to alter national immigration laws as President Donald Trump demands.
The president and his administration took a lot of heat on Monday for falsely insisting that the current policy of separating migrant families at the U.S. Southern border is actually a result of nonexistent Democratic laws. Amid this call from the White House for congressional action, Cruz is set to present the “Protect Kids and Parents Act,” a bill that explicitly says immigrant parents are allowed to stay with their kids.
The bill proposes that the number of immigration judges be doubled to 750, and requires asylum cases to be adjudicated in a two-week period. It also forbids the breakup of illegal immigrant families provided there is no record of “aggravated criminal conduct or threat of harm to the children.”
“All Americans are rightly horrified by the images we are seeing on the news, children in tears pulled away from their mothers and fathers. This must stop. Now,” Cruz said. “The answer is not what congressional Democrats are proposing: simply releasing illegal aliens and returning to the failed policy of ‘catch and release.’ Rather, we should fix the backlog in immigration cases, remove the legal barriers to swift processing, and resolve asylum cases on an expedited basis.”
#BREAKING #Texas Senator @tedcruz is introducing emergency leg this week to keep families together after illegally crossing border. “All Americans are rightly horrified by the images we are seeing on the news, children in tears pulled away from their mothers & fathers.” @CBSDFW pic.twitter.com/blDW9kXPcg
— Jack Fink (@cbs11jack) June 18, 2018
[Image via screengrab]
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