Sen. Marco Rubio has eloquently chided both parties for playing politics with immigration, most recently at a conference of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. The freshman senator’s remarks probably should be required reading—not because of political points scored but because they are a reasonable framework for national discussion. See more Rubio here: http://www.newseagle360.com/video/rubio-both-parties-playing-politics-immigration-reform
The Florida senator says that the central issue is not about “rights” but about the need for a compassionate response. “The truth is, there is no right to illegally immigrate to the United States and when we talk about illegal immigration, it’s not about demanding rights,” Rubio, who is of Cuban heritage, told the Latino conferees. “It’s about appealing to the compassion of the most compassionate nation in the history of the world.”
President Barack Obama recently waived interdiction of many young illegal immigrants who were brought into the country as infants. Obama did so through executive action rather than through proposing immigration legislation. Rubio noted that he has been working on such a feature of immigration law for months, working with senators on both sides of the aisle, as part of a larger immigration reform bill. That initiative now is moot because the president’s action bled away Democratic support for his legislative proposal.
“I proposed some specific ideas and I publicly talked about it,” he said at the conference. “The reaction from many on the left was an immediate dismissal. Of course, a few months later the president takes a similar idea and implements it through executive action and now it’s the greatest idea in the world. I don’t care who gets the credit, I don’t. But it exposes the fact that this issue is all about politics for some people, not just Democrats, but Republicans, too.” Get more breaking news on immigration at, www.NewsEagle360.com today!
Reforming immigration law and dealing with the backlog of illegal immigrants in the country is “complicated,” the senator said in something of an understatement. His approach to the issue seems to be to cut through complications by clearly outlining workable reforms that a fusion of open-minded legislators can work on together. If that is pie-in-the-sky, Senator Rubio might be the one able to pull it off and bake it into reality.
