Sen. Ted Cruz continued his attack Sunday on President Barack Obama's executive order granting legal status to up to 5 million illegal immigrants, saying that the presidents argument he was just using prosecutorial discretion is "just simply nonsense."
"For 4 to 5 million people here illegally he's promising to print up and give work authorizations," the Texas Republican said on
"Fox News Sunday." "Essentially, he's gotten in the job of counterfeiting immigration papers."
Cruz said the order goes beyond the 5 million specified, and actually extends to nearly all the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country. He said a
memo he sent to Homeland Security instructs the department not to enforce immigration laws except against violent criminals and a few others.
Cruz was asked about his call for Congress to fight Obama's plan by funding each agency through individual bills and attaching a rider to not fund Homeland Security until Obama reverses his executive order.
Obama would be expected to veto such bills, which brings back the specter of a government shutdown.
"You're willing to shut down departments and you're willing to take the backlash?" host Chris Wallace asked. "I mean, it didn’t work very well with Obamacare, sir."
Cruz, who led the budget fight against Obamacare in October 2013 that was blamed for the two-week partial government shutdown, responded that the media was wrong then and is probably wrong now.
Pundits, even those from the conservative side, predicted Cruz's budget fight would cost Republicans seats in the House and Senate. Instead, Cruz pointed out, the GOP gained seats in both houses and took control of the Senate.
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