Ted Cruz seizes on Beto O’Rourke’s willingness to consider abolishing ICE

Robert "Beto" O'Rourke, running as the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate waves to people as he made his way along the route during the annual Juneteenth Parade in Acres Homes, Saturday, June 16, 2018, in Houston. ( Karen Warren / Houston Chronicle ) less Robert "Beto" O'Rourke, running as the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate waves to people as he made his way along the route during the annual Juneteenth Parade in Acres Homes, Saturday, June 16, 2018, in ... more Photo: Karen Warren, Staff / Houston Chronicle Photo: Karen Warren, Staff / Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Ted Cruz seizes on Beto O’Rourke’s willingness to consider abolishing ICE 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

AUSTIN — Democrat Beto O’Rourke’s nuanced position on abolishing the federal agency responsible for enforcing immigration laws has opened a new line of attack from U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz as the two rivals continue to travel the state in advance of the fall Senate election.

O’Rourke has stopped short of calling for the elimination of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency as some Democrats have done recently, but his stance on the topic has produced enough gray area for Cruz to seize on the issue as a key dividing line between the two men who are battling in one of the most high profile mid-term elections in the nation.

“I’ve been the leading defender in the Senate of securing the border, building the wall, of keeping this country safe and stopping illegal immigration,” Cruz said in Longview in northeast Texas as part of an 11-city tour through the state this week. “In contrast, my opponent Democrat Beto O’Rourke supports sanctuary cities, supports open borders, and just this week he said he was ‘open to abolishing ICE.”

Cruz called eliminating ICE “radical” and “nuts.”

As he left a town hall in Hillsboro, about 160 miles away from where Cruz made his comments 18 hours earlier, O’Rourke said he does not want to eliminate ICE. He said the point he’s been making on the road is that it doesn’t matter if agencies like ICE and Homeland Security are eliminated if it is not addressing the practices in those agencies. He said that’s what he and others are seeking to change in light of the family separations that have occurred on the border. He said he’s willing to discuss eliminating ICE, but that alone will not solve the problem.

“I want to make sure we are ending the practices of taking kids from their families,” O’Rourke said. “I want to focus on ending the practices.”

O’Rourke acknowledges his position doesn’t fit on a bumper sticker or make for an easy campaign slogan. He said he’s trying to address the issue in a thoughtful way, and not just worry about how Cruz is going to use it as an attack.

O’Rourke, a three-term Congressman, said Cruz is distorting his views on immigration. O’Rourke has said he is not for open borders, but opposes building more walls along the Texas border with Mexico. And O’Rourke opposed the so-called sanctuary cities law passed by the Texas Legislature that required local police to check the immigration status of people they pull over. O’Rourke has blasted that as a “show-me-your-papers” law.

O’Rourke said it’s Cruz who should be held up to more scrutiny given his first comments on the family separations on the border. In early June, Cruz told reporters in North Texas that critics of the family separation policy were essentially opposing immigration enforcement.

“When you see Democrats saying don't separate kids from their parents, what they're really saying is don't arrest illegal aliens," Cruz told public broadcasting channel KERA in North Texas.

Cruz, who is running for a second 6-year term in the Senate, later came out against the family separation policy and told supporters in Longview this week that what was happening was “terrible.”

“We shouldn’t have to see kids in detention facilities,” Cruz said on Thursday.

Later he added: “We should all agree that families should stay together.”

But Cruz shifted blame away from the Trump administration for the policy. He said during President Barack Obama’s tenure in office there were children in detention facilities.

“This is not a new problem,” Cruz said.

jeremy.wallace@chron.com

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