Ted Cruz tells pro-slavery radio host that saying ‘anchor baby’ is ‘speaking truth' to power

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) appeared Friday morning on a radio program hosted by an Iowa conservative who suggested that undocumented immigrants should be pressed into slavery.

The Republican presidential candidate questioned whether there was a constitutional right to birthright citizenship, which is spelled out in the 14th Amendment, during an appearance on Jan Mickelson's radio program, reported Right Wing Watch.

Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner, said this week that some "very good lawyers" had told him that children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants were not actually citizens -- and Cruz, himself a Harvard-educated attorney, said the issue was a matter of debate.

“You know, it is an open legal question whether changing birthright citizenship could be done through statute or could be done through a constitutional amendment,” Cruz said. “There are serious constitutional scholars on both sides of that argument. As a policy matter, I think it is basic common sense that we shouldn’t be incentivizing illegal immigration, that it doesn’t make sense to provide rewards for people to break the law and come here.”

Cruz said he supported legislation by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) to end birthright citizenship, which the congressman believes can be done without changing the Constitution.

“In the end, I think we should pursue whatever means will be effective in ending birthright citizenship,” said Cruz, the Canada-born son of a Cuban immigrant.

Mickelson, who said this week undocumented immigrants should become property of the state and forced into servitude, asked Cruz whether he believed the term "anchor babies" was offensive.

"It’s amazing what the media chooses to get offended by,” Cruz said. “They don’t get offended when an illegal alien murders Kate Steinle in San Francisco. They don’t get offended when the Obama administration releases 104,000 violent criminal illegal aliens, and yet they get offended by people trying to solve real public policy.”

Mickelson said that the dictionary lists the slur as offensive, but he said liberals are wrong because the same dictionary also described marriage as a legal relationship between a man and woman.

“You know, there is power, Jan, to simply speaking the truth, to not engaging in this politically correct nonsense and double-speak,” Cruz said. “Speak honestly and candidly about the challenges we face, whether it’s the assault on marriage — and we have the Supreme Court and the radical left trying to forcibly redefine marriage and to tear down what has been a fundamental building block of our society from time immemorial — or when it comes to, on immigration.”