Sen. Rubio’s ‘Evolution’ on Immigration



Obama Speech Today on Immigration Plan

“The Obama administration has developed its own proposals for immigration reform that are more liberal than a separate bipartisan effort in the Senate, including a quicker path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, people with knowledge of the proposals said,” the Washington Post says.

“President Obama is expected to provide some details of the White House plans during a Tuesday appearance in Las Vegas, where he will call for broad changes to the nation’s immigration laws. The speech will kick off a public push by the administration in support of the broadest overhaul of immigration law in nearly three decades.”

Immigration Is Not a Cure-All for the GOP

“[W]hile immigration is an oft-covered topic, it’s not the top issue on Latino voters’ priority list. In a pre-election Pew Hispanic Center survey released last fall, a majority of Hispanic voters said education, health care and jobs/the economy were ‘extremely important’ to them. But only 34 percent said the same about immigration,” the Washington Post says.

“[T]here is a significant gap between some pillars of the Republican platform and the over-arching worldview of Hispanics.
Take the call for limited government, a cornerstone of the GOP’s political message. In a Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation survey taken last summer, 67 percent of Hispanics said they favor a ‘larger federal government with many services’ over a ‘smaller federal government with fewer services.’ Republicans expressed a dramatically different viewpoint in the poll, with 80 percent saying they prefer a ‘smaller federal government with fewer services.'”

Sen. Rubio’s ‘Evolution’ on Immigration

“Arizona Sen. John McCain partnered with liberal Democrat Ted Kennedy in 2005 to offer illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship, then allied with border security hardliners during a tough 2010 Republican primary. “Complete the danged fence,” McCain cracked in a widely publicized television spot,” National Journal says.

“Less well known is the equally dramatic pivot by Marco Rubio, from 2010 candidate who dismissed McCain’s proposal as ‘amnesty,’ to U.S. senator who on Monday championed reforms McCain said had ‘very little difference’ from his previous plan, which became the blueprint for failed legislation in 2006 and 2007.”

No Clear Answer on Border Security by GOP

“John McCain appeared on CBS This Morning to talk about the Gang of Eight proposal on immigration reform, and he starts out by insisting that ‘border security is a pre-requisite’ for immigration reform. But who gets to define when the border is secured in the Senate compromise plan? Later in the interview, McCain says not the commission described in the plan, but the Obama administration,” says Ed Morrisey at Hotair.com.

“In my interview with Marco Rubio yesterday, he seemed to believe that he had signed up for the guaranteed brake. And if the package doesn’t have it, Rubio committed to bailing out of it.”

About Author

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Dan is the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)'s President after joining the organization in 1982. He has testified more than 50 times before Congress, and been cited in the media as "America's best-known immigration reformer." Dan has appeared on virtually every significant TV and radio news/talk program in America and, in addition to being a contributing editor to ImmigrationReform.com, has contributed commentaries to a vast number of print media outlets.

5 Comments

  1. avatar

    “swift action”

    Always the recipe for awful legislation. The Democrats keep saying that their “bottom line” is citizenship, i.e., all they care about is votes. Aside from the mass legalization it will be a fight among various special interests and big donors, e.g., the prison industrial complex. Whether any of this will actually deter future illegal entry and presence is not just beside the point but something many politicians will want to fail.

  2. avatar

    Don’t get mad… get busy calling and writing congress. NumbersUSA.com is an activist network of 2 million and growing. We stopped amnesty in 2007 when unemployment was around 5 percent. We can stop it again with unemployment around 12 percent. Let the Republicans know that they will lose their seats if this thing is not blocked and stopped. Let the Democrats up for reelection in 2014 that they will lose their seats if they support this. We are on the verge of financial collapse thanks to the national debt, and John McCain and Marco Rubio think the best use of congressional time is amnesty. Attention people of South Carolina: Haven’t you had enough of Lindsey Graham and his amnesties yet? Primary him out please.

    • avatar

      Of course use and support Fairus.org too. Use NumbersUSA as a supplement to the FAIR activism.

  3. avatar

    The White House press secretary is still putting out that same old propaganda about how many people this administration has deported. The same numbers that the president told a group of Hispanic journalists were deceptive, his word, because most of them were simply turnarounds at the border, not deportations of those already here. And the press never questions this false assertion.

    He also wants “swift action” on any proposal. Why should we do that? This is a big issue that is going to affect the country in a big way and he just wants us to ignore the details and push it through. Maybe because his plan is more of the same old same old. His proposals put amnesty and citizenship first, with no more than vague promises of future enforcement. The same scam we got in 1986. And are we going to get any cost/benefit analysis of his proposal? Doubtful, because the figures won’t support his plan.

    And the Republicans would really be taking their stupid pills to think that pandering to Hispanics is going to get them votes. As pointed out in the Washington Post article, they want the big government programs of the Democrats. All amnesty does is make more Democratic voters.

  4. avatar

    I’d take Benedict Arnold Over Our Current Crop of Dem/Rep Open Border Politicians

    At least he was labeled correctly, as an anarchist, our current open border anarchist politicians call themselves elected officials supporting Constitutional Laws.

    IOWs, they BLATANTLY lie.