Rubio Shifts Stance On Immigration
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MIAMI (CBSMiami/AP) — Republican president contender Marco Rubio is shifting his stance on immigration, now portraying it as a matter of national security rather than what to do with the millions of people who have entered the country illegally. voters.
"The issue is not the same one we had a few years ago," said Rubio. "This issue's different now; we have radical jihadist groups that are using our immigration system against us."
Rubio says the federal government needs to boost border security and modernize the legal immigration system before it deals with the 11 million people here illegally. He says the government must do better at tracking the millions who overstay visas and must make mandatory the e-verify system, an Internet-based program that allows employers to check the eligibility of prospective employees through federal databases.
In recent weeks, Rubio has shifted the part of his stump speech about immigration painting gaps in the U.S.-Mexico border and the existing legal immigration system as a national security threat. And he's taken to telling voters that the Islamic State group is actively recruiting fighters to send to the United States posing as doctors, students and investors.
"Radical jihadist groups, the same people who carried out the attacks in Paris, who inspired the attacks in California, are trying to use our immigration system against us," Rubio said Thursday to a crowd packed into a Bedford home.
"They've already gotten someone into this country as a fiancee," he said, referring to Tashfeen Malif, the wife accused in the California shootings. A Pakistani citizen, she was allowed into the country in 2014 to marry a U.S. citizen. The FBI said after the shooting that Malif and her husband had been radicalized for some time, but the FBI also said recently there's no evidence of outside actors in coordinating the shooting.
Rubio says if the government doesn't know "100 percent" who someone is or why they are coming into the United States, they won't be allowed in under his administration.
"This has become a national security issue, and when an issue changes, so must your policies," he said.
But Rubio's stance on immigration was fluid long before the Islamic State was a concern.
As Florida's House speaker in 2008, Rubio came under fire from GOP colleagues for not bringing several bills aimed at discouraging illegal immigration to the House floor for a vote, including bills to increase employer verification requirements and require police to report those suspected of being in the country illegally.
He began to shift rightward when he ran for the Senate in 2010 as a tea party favorite, pledging to oppose any legislation that would grant amnesty to the millions here illegally.
Pressed about what to do with millions already here illegally, Rubio said then that they would return to their homelands and re-enter once the federal government enforced a legal immigration system "that works." He also opposed a 2007 comprehensive immigration reform bill authored by Sen. John McCain because it included "amnesty" for millions.
In 2013 he help craft an immigration reform bill which included a path to citizenship. It passed the Senate, with Rubio's help, but he later backed off the proposal as it began to draw fire from the conservative right. Asked to explain, he says he now favors a one-piece-at-a-time approach.
(TM and © Copyright 2016 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2016 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
