Cruz allies rip Trump’s immigration shift

Allies of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) say the former Republican presidential candidate saw Donald Trump’s “softening” on immigration coming.

“Everything Trump promises comes with an expiration date,” Amanda Carpenter, Cruz’s former Senate communications director, told Politico on Wednesday.

{mosads}“We knew it during the primary, and now it is apparent he has duped his most loyal supporters on the issue they care about most, immigration,” she said. “Don’t say we didn’t warn them.”

Chris Wilson, a top adviser during Cruz’s Oval Office bid, told the news outlet that Trump’s shift justifies Cruz’s decision not to endorse Trump, the Republican presidential nominee.

“It vindicates the speech, it vindicates what Ted Cruz warned would happen during the course of the campaign,” he said, referencing Cruz’s remarks at last month’s Republican National Convention.

“I do think, yes, the immigration point is another data point that he was right. It’s another data point that leads people to understand Ted Cruz knew what he was talking about, he was making the right decision.”

Rick Tyler, Cruz’s former campaign communications director, said that Trump’s evolving stance seems like amnesty for illegal immigrants.

“From what I have seen, he is now the pro-amnesty candidate,” he told Politico.

“If Trump is insistent on reversing himself on amnesty, then he will have fooled his entire base. He would have fooled enough people who voted for him to make him the Republican nominee. It’s deceitful; it was a betrayal.”

Cruz suspended his presidential campaign in early May after a bitter Republican primary fight with Trump.

Trump late Tuesday said he may moderate some of his hard-line immigration policies heading into the general presidential election.

“There certainly can be a softening, because we’re not looking to hurt people,” he said on Fox News’s “Hannity.”

Late Wednesday, Trump said he does not support amnesty for the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants.

“No citizenship,” he said on Fox News’s “Hannity.” “Let me go a step further. They’ll pay back taxes; they have to pay taxes. There’s no amnesty, as such. There’s no amnesty, but we work with them.”

Trump had previously called for a “deportation force” to remove all 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country.