Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has gone all in on the bill that would reform the nation's immigration laws, defending the bill this week against both reports from Politico suggesting the bill would benefit Democrats and a push from legislators to delay the bill due to two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings being immigrants.
Rubio took exception to a recent report from POLITICO that suggested that immigration reform could "cripple" the Republicans in elections around numerous states around the U.S. instead of helping them.
The report's analysis claims that if many of the immigrants that currently are ineligible to vote would have been allowed to vote in the last November elections "and voted along the same lines as other Hispanic voters did last fall, President Barack Obama's relatively narrow victory last fall would have been considerably wider."
Among the provisions in the bill proposed by the bipartisan U.S. Senate panel that Sen. Rubio is part of is the inclusion of a pathway to citizenship for many of the estimated 11 million immigrants who live illegally in the U.S.
Rubio cited GOP strategist Karl Rove's point during an interview with Fox that pointed out many of undocumented immigrants currently living in the U.S. are not in fact Hispanic.
"Not all 11 million illegal immigrants here today will qualify to become citizens, and not all of the 11 million illegal immigrants are Hispanic," Sen. Rubio said in a statement on his website. "Historically, many green card holders choose not to become citizens. And, unfortunately, not all eligible voters - regardless of their backgrounds - turn out to vote. Under the immigration legislation, not all illegal immigrants currently in this country will be eligible for temporary status and, as a result, will be subject to deportation."
As the Washington Post notes, statistics from the Pew Hispanic Research Center in 2010 showed that 81 percent of undocumented immigrants were of Hispanic origin. However, the report also notes that the 13-year length of time it would take for many of those immigrants to become citizens under the proposed bill could mean that fewer undocumented immigrants could vote before 2026 or 2028.
However, the POLITICO report isn't the only issue that has Sen. Rubio's attention when it comes to immigration reform--a topic that some speculate could help the Florida senator in his rumored 2016 presidential campaign.
During the last few days, legislators have been coming forward asking for Congress to hold off on passing the recently-submitted immigration reform bill after the news that the two suspects accused of detonating bombs at the Boston Marathon--which killed three and injured more than 180 people-were Chechen immigrants.
The topic was hotly debated at the first Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the bill Monday.
Sen. Rubio took aim at Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, who called it "cruel" for certain legislators to use the marathon bombings as an excuse to halt the passage of immigration reform.
Sen. Rubio disagreed with Sen. Leahy, stating "Any immigration reform we pursue should make our country safer and more secure."
"If there are flaws in our immigration system that were exposed by the attack in Boston, any immigration reform passed by Congress this year should address those flaws. Congress needs time to conduct more hearings and investigate how our immigration and national security systems could be improved going forward," he added.
However, Sen. Rubio concluded, "we still have a broken system that needs to be fixed."
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