After ignoring family separations at the border for the 4 years of the Trump administration, Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R) took to Twitter on Friday to share a video and remarks about his visit to the Southern border. But Cruz was quickly called out by former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, and Twitter users followed suit.
Cruz posted a series of clips with details about his trip with 18 other lawmakers as they explored “the shore of the Rio Grande” to “see the crisis that is playing out.” At one point, the Texas lawmaker even claimed so-called “smugglers” were “‘yelling’ at and taunting him.”
In another clip of Cruz’s escapades, he claimed they “encountered human traffickers” and “cartel members” who shined flashlights at them. “That’s Mexico, and you can see there are three smugglers right there, standing on the Mexico side, looking at us,” Cruz said in the video. “They’ve been shining their flashlights at us, they’re yelling at us.”
O’Rourke fired back at Cruz’s videos refuting his wild claims.
“You’re in a Border Patrol boat armed with machine guns. The only threat you face is unarmed children and families who are seeking asylum (as well as the occasional heckler),” the TexsDemocrat wrote before adding: “If you’re looking for a crisis to cosplay Senator for, I’m happy to point you in the right direction.”
In a later tweet, O’Rourkewent on to offer Cruz immigration statistics from 2019 up to this point tweeting. “The truth is, the number of individual asylum seekers and immigrants seeking to come to this country is the SAME or LOWER than it was in 2019 when Trump was President (and you were, apparently, Senator),” O’Rourke tweeted. “This isn’t any more of a crisis today than it was then,” he added.
Twitter users also fired back with tweets questioning Cruz’s claimed, with many pointing out that they believed the tweets seemed a bit fabricated while others did not believe any of his claims.
One Twitter user wrote, “10/10 those weren’t traffickers OR cartel members. They were probably kids having a party or the Mexican version of Border Control. No smuggler of any kind is gonna be that loud in the middle of the night while they’re trying to do shady sh*t.”
Check Cruz’s tweets and some of the reactions below.
Live footage from the banks of the Rio Grande.#BidenBorderCrisis pic.twitter.com/aO4EyANrRQ
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 26, 2021
We encountered human traffickers & cartel members tonight, yelling at us across the Rio Grande and preparing to cross. #BidenBorderCrisis pic.twitter.com/yXl3AyUIPd
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 26, 2021
The state you “represent” in the Senate is the least insured in the nation.
That means your constituents are dying of diabetes, curable cancers and the flu (as well as 50,000 from Covid in the last year alone) because they can’t afford a doctor or medicine.
— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) March 26, 2021
Hundreds of thousands of working Texans make a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, which means they need to 2 or even 3 jobs just to pay the rent and put food on the table.
And your hometown of Houston leads the nation in evictions of these minimum wage workers during the pandemic.
— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) March 26, 2021
If you’re ever interested in actually working on solutions to what we’re seeing at our border (instead of trafficking in seditious lies, fleeing Texas during a storm that killed more than 100, etc.), here are some ideas: https://t.co/D5idhhJ4w9
— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) March 26, 2021
THANK GOD YOU SURVIVED THE HECKLING! https://t.co/IT7vQdldWy
— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) March 26, 2021
And how exactly do you know that they were cartel members and human traffickers? This reminds me of Geraldo Rivera's fake combat video from Iraq.
— Ken Halkin (@kchalkin) March 26, 2021
10/10 those weren’t traffickers OR cartel members. They were probably kids having a party or the Mexican version of Border Control. No smuggler of any kind is gonna be that loud in the middle of the night while they’re trying to do shady sh*t.
— Liz Mills (@avoria13) March 26, 2021
😂😂😂😂😂😂 This is the total final definitive proof that…nothing. This video does not mean anything. Why don’t you start proposing something instead of wasting you time (and your voters’ money) pulling useless stunts like this one?
— Ubi Fabbri Curcio (@Ubi_wan_kenobi) March 26, 2021
