Texas Sen. Ted Cruz bluntly told an immigrant "DREAMer" from Mexico that he will deport her if he is elected president.
At a campaign event in Webster City, Iowa, the surging GOP presidential contender was questioned by a 30-year-old special needs worker who confessed she'd benefited from President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
"I think of myself as a part of this community and you know, first day of presidency, you decide to deport, you know, people like myself, you know, it's just very difficult," Ofelia Valdez told Cruz,
the Washington Post reports.
Nodding sympathetically, Cruz noted the executive order was "creating human tragedies" – but held firm to his stance against illegal immigration.
"If you're a DACA recipient, you were brought here illegally, and violating the law has consequences," he said.
A video clip of the exchange was posted on YouTube.
"One of the problems of our broken immigration system is that it is creating human tragedies and there are human tragedies when people break the law," Cruz said, adding if he were to enter another country "illegally… and they catch me, they will deport me."
"And there's no reason America's laws should have less respect," he said.
Cruz in 2014
accused Obama of acting like a "monarch" in passing executive actions on immigration that protected some illegal immigrants.
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