Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said Sunday the rates of COVID-19 infection are rising in his home state due “in significant part” to illegal aliens the Biden administration is releasing.
Cruz was asked at Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit whether he thought the rates in Texas were rising due to lower vaccination rates or illegal immigration.
Cruz responded that while both were factors, he believed the border crisis in Texas was significantly contributing to the rise in rates.
“We have a border crisis in the state of Texas. We’re seeing it first-hand…500,000 people have crossed into this country illegally in the first six months. We’re on pace for over two million people this year. That is the highest rate of illegal immigration in 20 years,” he said.
He said when he visited the border of the Rio Grande Valley a couple of months ago with 19 senators, they visited a tent facility that with COVID protocols in place, could house 250 people.
“We visited, it had over 4,200 people packed into that 1700% in excess of its capacity,” he said. He added:
These are the Biden cages. We saw little boys and little girls lying side by side, not six feet apart, not three feet apart. They weren’t six inches apart, cramped side by side in the Biden cages. And I can tell you in that facility, when we visited it, the rate of COVID positivity was over 10%. You’re packing children in cages with a lot of them having COVID and four of them getting COVID and the Biden Administration is ignoring the law and releasing into our communities — people that have COVID, most of whom are coming across this border who are not vaccinated.
He added that the Biden administration is considering ending Title 42, an authority that allowed immigration officials to rapidly expel illegal immigrants who would otherwise be held in congregate settings in order to prevent the transmission of COVID-19.
“So yes, you better believe the rising COVID ratess are due in significant part to illegal aliens that the Biden administration is releasing in Texas, that have COVID rates seven times higher than the U.S. population,” he said.
“And we need to stop being boneheaded and ignoring the science, which is what the administration is doing,” he added.
Cruz said that he believes in vaccines and is vaccinated, but that he also believed in individual liberty and that government should not force people to get vaccinated.
“I think we have individual responsibility. We can make an assessment based on our health situation. I’m encouraging Texans to get vaccinated. I want to beat this damn disease. This disease is serious,” he said.
Recently, dozens of Democrat state representatives fled Texas for Washington, D.C., to deprive the state legislature of a quorum to conduct business and vote on voter integrity laws. They posted photos of themselves on planes and buses not wearing masks. As of Monday, at least five tested positive for COVID-19 while in Washington, D.C., despite being vaccinated.
Some visited with Vice President Kamala Harris, who went to Walter Reed on Sunday and has not appeared in public since, as Breitbart News has reported.
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