WASHINGTON -- Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Sunday he would not use a special force to deport the estimated 11.3 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. were he elected president.
Drawing a contrast with Republican front-runner Donald Trump, Cruz said on CNN's "State of the Union" that he would not have enforcement going door to door to round up undocumented immigrants.
"I don’t intend to send jackboots to knock on your door, and every door in America," Cruz said. "That’s not how we enforce the law for any crime."
While criticizing deportation relief provided by President Barack Obama, Cruz previously had not said how he would handle deporting the millions of undocumented immigrants in the country.
"We don’t have any system that knocks on the doors of every person in America," Cruz said.
Under his immigration plan, Cruz said children born in the U.S. would not be American citizens unless their parents were. That would require changing the 14th Amendment.
Trump too supports ending birthright citizenship in his immigration plan, but goes further than Cruz by vowing to use a special force to carry out deportations.
Cruz instead said he wanted to stick to using systems like E-Verify and the "criminal law enforcement system" to track and deport undocumented immigrants.
To deport over 11 million people in an 18- to 24-month timeframe, as Trump has suggested, it would cost the U.S. between $100 billion and $200 billion.
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