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Sen. Ted Cruz said on Tuesday that suspending immigration during the coronavirus pandemic is a reasonable short-term measure, yet Democrats are predictably attacking President Trump over it.

“It’s the same opposition they had when the president on January 31st halted flights in and out of China. That decision saved lives in America,” the Texas Republican lawmaker told "Fox & Friends."

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Trump announced late Monday he will soon sign an executive order "to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States," in what appeared to be a drastic escalation of his efforts to fight the coronavirus pandemic and boost the economy.

The declaration came hours after U.S. equity markets plunged, with oil prices turning negative for the first time in history. Also on Monday, three states – Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina – revealed plans to begin reopening some businesses.

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Cruz said that in a Senate hearing with experts from the Centers for Disease Control, the Department of Transportation, and the Customs and Border Patrol, they all had credited the China travel ban measure for saving lives.

“What did Joe Biden do? He called the president a xenophobe for doing that. Same thing when the president halted travel into and out of Europe. Same thing today.”

“The Democrats makes a lot of noise about wanting to do more to stop the spread of coronavirus but when the president stands up and does that, all they can do is attack him.”

Cruz said that there aren’t just public health risks when bringing immigrants into the United States.

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“But there’s the reality of jobs. Immigration is supposed to support American workers and American jobs. When you got 30 million Americans unemployed, Democrats are flabbergasted why we wouldn’t want to continue bringing in new workers even though we have millions of workers here at home that we need to get back to work.”

Fox News' Gregg Re contributed to this report.