In the next three days, I’ll be taking a look at three elements of Rubio’s record on illegal immigration:
- Rubio co-authored a bill to give 20 million illegal immigrants a path to citizenship: voting and access to welfare payments
- Rubio promised a Spanish-speaking audience that he would not rescind Obama’s executive action amnesty if elected President
- Rubio co-sponsored a bill to give illegal immigrants in-state tuition in Florida, to be paid for by Florida taxpayers
I’ll do the first one on Tuesday morning, and the second one on Wednesday morning, and the third one on Thursday morning.
The amnesty bill of 2013
Marco Rubio was a co-author of a 2013 bill that would give illegal immigrants permanent residency, as well as a path to citizenship. This would allow them to vote in future elections. There are currently 20-30 million illegal immigrants in the United States who would be affected by this law.
CNN explains what part of the bill that Rubio worked on:
As he has risen in the polls, Rubio has methodically sought to distance himself from the comprehensive immigration bill he coauthored more than two years ago. But Schumer, the veteran New York Democrat, is dragging him back into the fray, shining a spotlight on one of the 44-year-old’s biggest vulnerabilities with the right as top Democrats seek to undermine the GOP senator’s surging candidacy.
“He was not only totally committed — he was in that room with us, four Democrats, four Republicans,” Schumer told CNN Thursday in an interview in his Senate office. “His fingerprints are all over that bill. It has a lot of Rubio imprints.”
Schumer is… saying Rubio was the main architect of the provision to provide a pathway to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants, something bound to give ammunition to his primary foes who call the measure “amnesty.”
So, Rubio’s part of the bill was the pathway to citizenship. At the very least, he co-authored the bill, and viciously attacked conservatives who spoke out against his path to citizenship bill.
Keep in mind that CNN is factually incorrect about the number of illegal immigrants. The number is not 11 million. The correct number, according to the Border Patrol, is 18-20 million – and that was back in 2013. Would Republicans ever win another election if 18-20 million Democrat voters (unskilled immigrants tend to overwhelmingly vote Democrat) were added to the electorate?
By the way, Marco Rubio reiterated his support for full path-to-citizenship amnesty last month to Chuck Todd on NBC News.
I hope all the Marco Rubio voters will see this post and engage with the details of this man’s record. He swore up and down during his 2010 election campaign that he was “strongly against amnesty” (his own words!), then he went to Washington and led the push for amnesty.
I am not even sure that he is pro-life. He says he is pro-life, but then he told Florida voters that he was not pro-amnesty. If he betrays his supporters on amnesty, then he could easily betray them on defending the unborn, as well. We just don’t know where he stands on anything. He says one thing while campaigning and then leads the fight to do the exact opposite once elected. This was not done in a corner, folks.
Here’s the full list of Rubio errors:
- Rubio got a D rating from pro-marriage activist Maggie Gallagher regarding his response to the Obergefell decision, which redefined marriage for all 50 states.
- Rubio supports sugar subsidies and ethanol subsidies, which is just crony capitalism
- Rubio takes money from a billionaire gay-marriage activist who donates to the Human Rights Campaign group – a group which wants government to persecute Christians who dissent from celebrating gay marriage
- Rubio skipped votes on de-funding Planned Parenthood in order to go to campaign fundraising events
- Rubio voted for a gun ban in Florida public parks
- Rubio introduced a bill to strip accused students of due process rights in university trials
- Rubio supported the disastrous Obama/Clinton Libya intervention which created an Islamic State caliphate in Libya
- Rubio led the effort to pass amnesty – a path to citizenship for 20 million illegal immigrants – so they can vote to expand government
- Rubio promised a Spanish-speaking audience that he would not rescind Obama’s executive action amnesty if elected President
- Rubio co-sponsored a bill to give illegal immigrants in-state tuition in Florida, to be paid for by Florida taxpayers
WINTERY KNIGHT 
Question, Wintery: will you support Rubio in this blog if he is the eventual Republican nominee?
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I will not support him on this blog, and this a recent decision based on his dishonest attacks against Cruz in the last few weeks.
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But I won’t oppose him either.
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Do you mean to say that if it comes down to a Presidential election contest between Marco Rubio and Hillary Clinton you intend to remain NEUTRAL???
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Not sure. Right now I despise Rubio’s lies against Cruz.
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All I know is that defeating Hillary in 2016 is PARAMOUNT, no matter who we nominate. For the sake of the country, the Supreme Court, and the world. It is every Christian’s duty to do whatever we can to protect the unborn at the very least. Like you always say, WK, Christianity isn’t easy.
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If he would stop attacking Cruz in debates about amnesty – which he loves and Cruz hates – then I’d leave him alone.
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Fair enough, but of course you realize that Hillary would be HIDEOUSLY worse that Rubio when it comes to amnesty, not to mention virtually every other area as well.
I will support whomever we nominate to be President. Even (gag) Donald Trump, if we’re stupid enough as a Party to do that. Why? Because of jobs, the economy, national defense, the war on terror, tax and entitlement reform, abortion, the Supreme Court (!), amnesty and just about everything else. In every one of the above areas, EVEN THE DONALD would be better than Comrade Clinton, and we both know it. I respect your support for Cruz, but once we nominate someone WE MUST UNITE BEHIND HIM AS OUR CANDIDATE IN ORDER TO DEFEAT HILLARY. She MUST be stopped. We must NOT shoot ourselves in the foot on this one. The stakes are too high. Blessings to you.
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Didn’t Cruz also change his position on immigration from his previous stance?
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He wants an investigation of H-1B visas, but otherwise no. See my 2 PM post which explains what Cruz did in 2013 and 2014.
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Ah.
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If it comes down to having to choose between Cruz and Rubio, what a coup for Conservatism. The reason they keep rehashing their different reactions to illegal immigration in 2013 is because there is little else to criticize and little distance between them, except perhaps on foreign policy, where Rubio is certainly more of an interventionist. Between the two, I’m partial to Rubio. I think he’s better for Conservatism and its ends by being more able to bring new conservatives into the fold. But I will say, major kudos to Cruz for rejecting sugar and ethanol subsidies. That was courageous and principled indeed.
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Actually, if you read this post, you’ll see that Rubio lied to his constituents, saying he opposed amnesty, then he introduced an amnesty bill along with Democrats:
And actually, if you read this post, you’ll see that Cruz fought that 2013 amnesty, but also Obama’s 2014 amnesty:
So they could not be more different. At the bottom of the first post, there is a list of other items where Rubio is liberal:
There is no such list for Cruz. I only disagree with Cruz on warrantless aggregate data collection (I’m for it) and invading and occupying Syria (I’m for it) and he wants to push definition of marriage down to the state level (I want it fixed at the federal level). The rest of his record is 100% conservative. He’s more moderate than I am, and Rubio is far to the left of me, for the 10 reasons states. Rubio is also a *scumbag liar* for trying to say that Cruz is the same as him on immigration, when their records are at opposite ends of the spectrum on immigration, as I demonstrated.
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That’s quite the laundry list, and right now I only have a few minutes. I’ll start by cherry-picking a couple. Surely Rubio’s rating from Maggie Gallagher is neutralized by Eric Teetsel of the Manhattan Declaration being on his team. Surely his very principled and well-spoken defense of life and A+ record from pro-life groups discredits any concerns about his opposition to Planned Parenthood. Alright, gotta catch my train. Cheers.
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Teetsel is an employee of Rubio, and no I don’t respect him. He never addresses any of the problems in my list. None of the pro-Rubio endorsers are honest about his past. They like him for superficial reasons, and they just don’t know about the problems with his very liberal record.
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Exactly, Mr. Knight. Teetsel — who for years was a leader in the defense of life, natural marriage, and religious liberty — chose to work with Rubio, believing him to be an able champion of those goals. Obviously, some conservatives with similar goals have also aligned with Rubio, others with Cruz. Maggie Gallagher’s grade is not dispositive. Strike point #1.
Mr. Knight, you would never let one of the debaters you so ably scrutinize get away with poisoning the well like you just did above. That’s Lawrence Krauss level stuff. None of Rubio’s supporters are honest about his past? They all like him for superficial reasons? The diverse array of sage, stalwart conservatives who have either endorsed or who are positive toward Rubio are disingenuous and unserious? Really? Jindal? Krauthammer? Grudem? You can’t believe that.
Your list of Rubio’s supposedly “very liberal” indiscretions serves mostly to underscore how much one has to grasp at straws to make such a case, not to mention how odd it is that, by contrast, all the conservative organizations who grade representatives give Rubio stellar scores, like the 94% from Heritage Action. (Ted Cruz does ace the test with a 100.)
Point #2, agricultural subsidies, goes to you.
Point #3, irrelevant. Guilt by association is out of place, and Cruz would fail by this silly criterion too (cf. Peter Thiel).
Point #4, is quibbling in an election year. Rubio get’s 100% from National Right to Life (for at least 14 votes) and Family Research Council, 0 from NARAL. The intimation that Rubio can’t be trusted on abortion is totally ungrounded.
Point #5. Okay, I’ll give it to you. It WAS 16 years ago, though. Crikey. A B+ from NRA today.
Point #6 is potentially concerning. Rubio’s site claims: “Marco has fought successfully to exclude the key items on the left’s wish-list. The bill does not adopt “affirmative consent” (known as “Yes-means-yes”) as a national standard for campus sexual assault. Nor does it legislate a “preponderance of the evidence” standard for campus disciplinary proceedings.” Do you have reason to believe that this is false? FIRE’s take on the revised bill seemed mostly positive, albeit ambivalent.
Point #7 is a wash. Politicos of all stripes were flummoxed about what to do in Libya. It was neither more nor less conservative to intervene. The Middle East is a conundrum, and genuine conservatives can disagree about how to do the most good. The same is true for Syria. I personally think we are morally obligated to intervene and stop the worst atrocities, even if there’s no fertile soil for a stable and just government to follow. But I could be wrong.
Points 8-10. Now we come to Rubio’s greatest vulnerability from the right, though I don’t know whether to call the anti-immigration wave conservative or not. As Reagan demonstrated, it’s not alien to a deeply conservative philosophy to be open to a solution to the reality of millions of established illegal immigrants that compromises the absolute rule of law. Rubio should have been the wiser based on Reagan’s experience when the Gang of Eight bill was struck, but neither should conservatives demand a solution that is completely unyielding toward the illegal immigrants living here long term. The tuition bill, #10, is especially defensible in this respect, targeted as it is to the non-culpable children of those who immigrated illegally; at least, it would be if we gained control of the border. There’s also no scandal whatsoever in his translated remarks on Univision, #9. Readers should look it up. I agree that in 2013 Rubio went along with a bill that contained a path to citizenship when it only ever should have been to legalization, and only after the federal government had secured the border. He’s admitted the error.
One last important issue. After so many years of the Left’s egregious abuse of the term “lie” with respect to George Bush, the Republicans have tragically fallen for the same tactic. It was a travesty watching the Republican candidates flippantly throwing that charge around during Saturday’s debate. I urge you to save that serious charge for the right time. It is not necessarily a lie to vote for or co-sponsor a bill with provisions you have publicly opposed. As a supporter of Cruz, I’m sure you extend HIM that benefit of the doubt toward his “poison pill”. It is also not a LIE to have a difference of opinion over what exactly merits the term “amnesty”.
Not long ago you were saying that you liked Rubio and that he was your second pick. I don’t think anything has happened since then that should change that appraisal. Cruz is an extraordinarily bright and principled conservative. Rubio is an extraordinarily gifted and ever-so-slightly less strict conservative. We should be so lucky.
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Wow. Brilliant.
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