There are certain things you just don’t expect to hear Senator Ted Cruz say. Like, “You gals go on to Cancun by yourselves, I’ve got work to do” or “I’ve been getting a lot of positive feedback about the beard”. Just as unlikely was something he actually DID say in El Paso on Friday: “We need to open up the border with Mexico”.

The comments were made Friday when Cruz was in El Paso to visit Ft. Bliss where refugees from Afghanistan are being housed followed by a meeting with the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

According to Cruz, restrictions of non-essential travel between Mexico and the United States are, “Hurting Texas all the way from El Paso to Brownsville”.

The border needs to be reopened, “So our friends from Mexico can come across the bridge, can go shopping, can go eat dinner at restaurants in El Paso”, Cruz said.

This is quite a change from, when less than a month ago, Cruz was putting the blame for rising COVID numbers ON people coming across the southern border.

In July Cruz said that people coming across the Texas border with Mexico were, “Spreading COVID and then releasing COVID in our communities. This is lunacy”.

To be fair, in July Ted Cruz was talking about illegal border crossings but he was ALSO talking about asylum seekers, which IS a legal form of entry. The only rationale I can think of to warrant this kind of rapid reversal is that Ted Cruz thinks that only people NOT coming to Texas to spend money are disease carriers.

Actually, that equation does a pretty good job of summing up the modern Republican Party’s view of human value. I guess maybe asylum seekers can start saying, “Oh , in addition from fleeing persecution and death in my home country I ALSO want to try some of that Chili’s Margherita Flatbread I’ve been hearing so much about”. That way they can pass the Cruz/Commerce test.

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