As Rush Limbaugh notes, Donald Trump has indeed made illegal immigration into an issue of national debate. The liberal media and now, apparently, the chairman of the Republican Party, have objected to Trump’s comments about criminal aliens. In fact, what Trump has done is jeopardize a plan that goes way beyond mere amnesty for illegals, and which has been on the drawing board for more than a decade. Simply put, the plan is to submerge the sovereignty of the United States of America and politically integrate the U.S., Canada, and Mexico into a trilateral entity called the North American Union.

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) calls it a “North American Community,” as if the corrupt culture and government of Mexico can be made to mesh with democratic systems in the U.S. and Canada. It means open borders and more criminal aliens in the U.S.

Accuracy in Media attended a conference on the topic of North American economic and political integration in 2007 which included proposals for a North American Court of Justice (with the authority to overrule a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court), a North American Trade Tribunal, and a Charter of Fundamental Human Rights for North America, also dubbed the North American Social Charter.

The major media won’t report on this because major Republicans and Democrats are in on it. Much of the scheme was hatched under the Republican administration of George W. Bush, but it is now being carried forward by President Obama.

It turns out that Trump has only scratched the surface of a scandal that threatens American sovereignty and would make it easier for millions more Mexicans to come into the U.S. completely legally.

As he takes on the media in tough interviews and holds his ground, even turning the tables on shallow liberals like CNN’s Anderson Cooper and NBC’s Katy Tur, Trump has found one fellow candidate who is sympathetic. Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said, “I think he’s terrific. I think he’s brash. I think he speaks the truth.”

But this is somewhat ironic since Cruz’s wife, Heidi, an investment banker, was a member of a Council on Foreign Relations Task Force, which in 2005 developed a plan for a “North American Community.” The recommendations of this panel included a multi-billion dollar North American Investment Fund to pull Mexico out of poverty, a North American Border Pass to facilitate travel between the countries, and expansion of “temporary worker programs.”

In 2011, when he was running for the Republican Senate nomination, Cruz had called the CFR “a pernicious nest of snakes” that is “working to undermine our sovereignty.”

In addition to serving as a member of the CFR, Mrs. Cruz, a graduate of Harvard Business School, served in the Bush White House under Dr. Condoleezza Rice as the Economic Director for the Western Hemisphere at the National Security Council, as the Director of the Latin America Office at the U.S. Treasury Department, and as Special Assistant to Ambassador Robert B. Zoellick, U.S. Trade Representative. Her CFR bio said, “Prior to government service, Ms. Cruz was an investment banker with J.P. Morgan in New York City.”

Today she is a managing director at the investment banking firm Goldman Sachs in Houston, but is reportedly on leave from the position while her husband runs for president.

Perhaps the key figure in the CFR task force was the late Robert Pastor, a former official of the Carter administration and director of the Center for North American Studies at American University. He wrote the book, Toward a North American Community.

President Clinton had nominated Pastor to be Ambassador to Panama after he had been instrumental in the giveaway of our Panama Canal under Jimmy Carter. But the late Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), the then-powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, prevented a vote on his nomination, on the ground that he was aiding radical forces and undermining U.S. interests in the region. Pastor, who had been an official of the Clinton-Gore campaign, withdrew his nomination.

Pastor tried to play down the idea that a North American Community would develop into anything resembling the European Union, which is regarded by many as a bureaucratic entity that can supersede the sovereignty of its member countries.

But the Bush administration was viewed as facilitating the process of creating a North American economic, social and political entity through a process called the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP).

The dangers were so great that the late Howard Phillips of the Conservative Caucus formed a “Coalition to Block the North American Union” in 2007, to highlight how a North American Union would run roughshod over U.S. constitutional processes and guarantees.

Yet, President Obama has continued the process and, after meeting with the leaders of Mexico and Canada in 2014, said plans for a “North American Transportation Plan” and a “North American Trusted Traveler Program” to facilitate travel and exchanges would go forward. The next North American Leaders’ Summit is scheduled for this fall.

The idea of an annual North American summit meeting was one of the recommendations of that 2005 CFR task force.

Jerry Corsi of WorldNetDaily has noted that the criticism of the CFR put Senator Cruz in an uncomfortable position, since his wife had been a member of the powerful group.

“I support the Task Force report and its recommendations aimed at building a safer and more prosperous North America,” Mrs. Cruz said in an additional statement in the CFR report. She also urged that economic investment in the region “be led and perpetuated by the private sector.”

At some point, if Senator Cruz is himself serious about his praise of Donald Trump’s tough stand and comments about illegal immigration, Mrs. Cruz may have to come forward to explain her involvement in the CFR panel’s controversial work.