Cruz Campaign Press Release - CRUZ: If I'm Elected President the Federal Government Will Stop Releasing Violent Criminal Illegal Aliens

HOUSTON, Texas– U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, spoke with Jan Mickelson regarding immigration, Syria refugee crisis and 2016 presidential race.

Below is an excerpt featuring the Senator's remarks on stopping sanctuary cities and enforcing immigration law. Full interview? can be listened to below:

MICKELSON: You are in the right place, right time to talk about sanctuary cities, you've introduced along with David Vitter, the Stop Sanctuary Policies Protect American's Act. Talk to us about that:

CRUZ: Well the Senate is going to vote on that next week, I've joined with David Vitter of Louisiana and actually Iowa's own Chuck Grassley were the co-authors of this legislation. It does two things. Number one, it strips federal funding of any sanctuary cities. So if you have a city, typically led by a Democrat Mayor and a Democrat city council, that declares they are going to fight federal immigration laws, that they're going to oppose enforcing the immigration laws, than the federal government is not going to be sending them any money. And I think if we pass that into law, it will have a powerful effect ending the lawlessness of these local elected Democrats.

And the second component of this is Kate's law, which is the legislation I introduced in the senate. That provides any illegal alien that has been deported who comes back who has an aggravated felony, that individual faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison. We're going to vote on both of those next week in the Senate.

MICKELSON: Technical question, does a city or jurisdiction have to declare themselves a sanctuary city to be under the provisions of this act?

CRUZ: Well they don't and actually the act includes transparency and accountability. One of the things that makes a sanctuary city is when the federal government, immigration officials issue what's called a detainer. Which is let's say a local city picks up someone for committing a crime and the feds discover that person is here illegally, they can issue a detainer which is asking the local government will you hold this person so we can pick him up and deport him. There are a whole bunch of cities that ignore federal detainers. That say, 'nope sorry we are not going to cooperate with you, we're going to let this guy go,' And one of those cities is San Francisco. We were all horrified at the murder of Kate Steinle just a couple of months ago. Yet that's an example where San Francisco, the federal government issues a detainer and asks them will you hold temporarily this illegal alien who is a criminal so that we can process him and deport him. San Francisco says no we welcome illegal aliens including badly, violent criminal illegal aliens to our city and so the numbers in terms of cities that refuse to honor detainers will all be publicly reported that's part of this legislation so that anyone can go look at the website and see what their city is doing and just how many criminal illegal aliens their city has released.

MICKELSON: The city of Des Moines has never declared itself a sanctuary city. However, various members of law enforcement here have publicly stated that they will not do the 287 or 387 G agreements; I can't remember the number at the moment. They've expressed the outspoken desire not to enforce immigration laws and not to cooperate.

CRUZ: It is a problem Jan that we're seeing it across the country and not only is it local cities which are an enormous problem but it's true at the federal government level too. The Obama administration in 2013 released over 103,000 violent, criminal illegal aliens including 196 murderers. Including nearly 400 illegal aliens convicted of sexual assault. And that's one of the things I pledged, if I am elected President, that will end. The federal government will stop releasing violent criminal illegal aliens. It's indefensible, it's lawless we're seeing cities doing it and sadly we're seeing the Obama administration doing it as well.