Food Fight Over Senator Rubio’s Immigration Initiative
Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) has taken the lead in attempting to solve the broken immigration system. According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform, Florida spends over $5.4 billion annually to incarcerate, medicate and educate illegal aliens. Americans have seen old/new initiatives like these end in failure, while contributing to the end of the careers of Republican politicians. John McCain comes to mind.
Will Rubio’s political career end on a sour note?
Florida resident and immigration expert George Fuller notes, “People talk about Immigration all the time but what is the purpose and do we in fact have a need? We have no lands to settle. We are world’s third most populated country and we should be able to provide all the brainiacs needed for industry, if not, then there is a terrible problem with our education system. To me no one ever asks the question: If we need immigration and why?”
The Shark Tank reported that in 2009 candidate Rubio had a different take on immigration than Senator Rubio in 2013. Javier Manjarres in his column Marco Rubio, The Immigration Reform Savior or Fraud? quotes then candidate Rubio on immigration in a video interview conducted March of 2009:
“No. Never have been. I am strongly against amnesty. The most important thing we need to do is enforce our existing laws. We have existing immigration laws that are not being adequately enforced. Nothing will make it harder to enforce the existing laws, if you reward people who broke them.
It demoralizes people who are going through the legal process, its a very clear signal of why go through the legal process, if you can accomplish the same thing if you go through the illegal process. And number two, if demoralizes the people enforcing the laws. I am not, and I will never support any effort to grant blanket legalization/amnesty to folks who have entered, stayed in this country illegally.“ [My emphasis]
Fast forward to this statement from Senator Rubio during an interview in January 2013:
“So, we have 11 million people that are undocumented. We understand that we have to deal with this issue because we have 11 million people that, by all accounts, are going to be here the rest of their lives with or without documents. Our objection has been in the past that we can’t do anything to deal with 11 million people that number one, is unfair to the people who have done it the right way. Or number two, that would encourage illegal immigration in the future.”
Some, like Eric Erickson from RedState.com think the Rubio initiative is a mistake. Erickson wrote in his column I Don’t Like Marco Rubio’s Plan, “I think this plan is warmed over McCain-Kennedy and will do nothing to solve the problem. I say this as someone to the left of much of the readership here at RedState and the conservative base.” “The GOP was smart to put Marco Rubio as the face of the plan because many of us like him personally, support him still, and consequently don’t want to seem critical. But the plan makes the actual problem of immigration more difficult to solve,” writes Erickson.
So what is the real issue behind this Rubio initiative? Why votes in 2014.
Senator Rubio states in a reply posted on RedState.com answering Erickson’s concerns that, “On the political front, a growing number of voters of Asian and Hispanic descent have been convinced by the left that conservative opposition to immigration reform equates to being anti-immigrant. This is unfair, and it is untrue. But they have pulled it off and, as a result, our ability to convince these fast-growing communities that the principles of limited government and free enterprise are better for them than big government and collectivism has been impaired.”
The fundamental questions are: Do we really need immigration at all, do we want carry the huge financial burden of illegals aliens? Are we a nation of laws or or men?
RELATED COLUMNS:
Immigraiton Reform Requires Caution
Reforming America’s Immigration System
