--- title: Ted Cruz: Senator Walks a Careful Line on Immigration Reform description: The GOP presidential hopeful opposes a path to citizenship, but casts himself as a supporter of legal immigration. canonical: https://time.com/3841047/ted-cruz-immigration-reform/ author: Alex Altman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-04-29T22:39:10.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T06:48:08.566Z article:section: Politics og:title: Ted Cruz Walks a Careful Line on Immigration Reform og:description: The GOP presidential hopeful opposes a path to citizenship, but casts himself as a supporter of legal immigration og:url: https://time.com/3841047/ted-cruz-immigration-reform/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4130e4dc761eb8a3/6987eda10b72e32bc76e1ce0/ted-cruz4.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3290 og:image:height: 1851 og:image:alt: Ted Cruz og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Ted Cruz Walks a Careful Line on Immigration Reform twitter:description: The GOP presidential hopeful opposes a path to citizenship, but casts himself as a supporter of legal immigration twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4130e4dc761eb8a3/6987eda10b72e32bc76e1ce0/ted-cruz4.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Cruz Walks a Careful Line on Immigration Reform > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=3aaadbd6-8429-461d-a555-5b486a86e5f1&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1)  by [Alex Altman](https://time.com/author/alex-altman/)  ## Alex Altman Altman is the executive features editor and deputy Washington bureau chief at TIME. Apr 29, 2015 10:39 PM UTC  Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas gestures while he talks at the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC), on April 29, 2015, at the National Press Club in Washington. Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas gestures while he talks at the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC), on April 29, 2015, at the National Press Club in Washington. Cliff Owen—AP  by [Alex Altman](https://time.com/author/alex-altman/)  ## Alex Altman Altman is the executive features editor and deputy Washington bureau chief at TIME. Apr 29, 2015 10:39 PM UTC Texas Senator and Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz cast himself as a supporter of immigration reform on Wednesday, while criticizing Democrats for killing prospects of a bipartisan deal by insisting on a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. “I consider myself a proponent of immigration reform,” Cruz said during a question-and-answer session in Washington hosted by the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “There is no stronger advocate of legal immigration in the U.S. Senate than I am.” Cruz was an outspoken detractor of the bipartisan rewrite of U.S. immigration laws that passed the Senate in 2013, which in the eyes of many Republicans would have shored up the party’s moribund support among Hispanic voters. His comments offer a telling glimpse of how he will attempt to find a delicate balance on a pivotal issue during his campaign. The GOP presidential hopeful opposes citizenship for undocumented immigrants, but he stressed Wednesday the need to celebrate and encourage legal immigration. And he noted his support for dramatically increasing the available number of high-tech visas. His remarks drew an implicit contrast with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, a likely rival for the GOP nomination, who recently took a [protectionist stance](http://time.com/3831927/scott-walker-immigration-flip-flop/) on legal immigration levels. Cruz declined to directly answer a question from TIME about whether he would support a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants currently in the U.S., indicating a legislative fix should first focus on shoring up border security. The freshman Senator said he believed there was significant bipartisan agreement around securing the borders and streamlining the legal immigration system. He criticized Democrats for crippling the recent reform plan in Congress by insisting on the “poison pill” of citizenship. “They are treating immigration as a political cudgel,” Cruz said, “where they want to use it to scare the Hispanic community. And their objective is to have the Hispanic community vote monolithically Democrat.” Many Republicans argued Mitt Romney’s hardline position on immigration was largely to blame for his dismal performance with Latino voters in the 2012 presidential race. But Cruz said his view—born out by his Senate campaign’s internal polling—was that Romney had alienated Hispanics with a message that appeared to denigrate middle-class Americans while venerating the wealthy. Cruz argued that Republicans could win over Hispanics with a message of economic opportunity, saying Republicans “should be the party of the 47%.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3841047/ted-cruz-immigration-reform/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3841047/ted-cruz-immigration-reform/"},"headline":"Cruz Walks a Careful Line on Immigration Reform","datePublished":"2015-04-29T22:39:10.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T06:48:08.566Z","description":"The GOP presidential hopeful opposes a path to citizenship, but casts himself as a supporter of legal immigration","url":"https://time.com/3841047/ted-cruz-immigration-reform/","keywords":["Immigration","2016","ted cruz"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4130e4dc761eb8a3/6987eda10b72e32bc76e1ce0/ted-cruz4.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alex Altman","jobTitle":"Altman is the executive features editor and deputy Washington bureau chief at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/alex-altman/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4130e4dc761eb8a3/6987eda10b72e32bc76e1ce0/ted-cruz4.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Ted Cruz","caption":"Ted Cruz","creditText":"Cliff Owen—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3841047/ted-cruz-immigration-reform/","name":"Cruz Walks a Careful Line on Immigration Reform"}}]}] ```