On Thursday morning, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), the key Republican member of the so-called Gang of Eight behind the current immigration reform bill, said that he would drop his support for the bill if Democrats insisted on a provision allowing newly-legalized illegal immigrants to sponsor their gay partners’ immigration. “If this bill has something in it that gives gay couples immigration rights and so forth, it kills the bill,” he said. “I’m done. I’m off it, and I’ve said that repeatedly. I don’t think that’s going to happen and it shouldn’t happen. This is already a difficult enough issue as it is.”
The amendment has been introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and would allow green cards to foreign partners of gay illegal immigrants. The Senate will vote on Leahy’s amendment – unlike the border security amendment stonewalled by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).
Rubio added that the border security provisions of the bill are inadequate. “If the border situation is not improved in this bill, this bill won’t pass,” he said. “It won’t pass the Senate and it has no chance in the House. It won’t become a law and we’re wasting our time.”
Despite Rubio’s reservations, Republican-oriented groups including Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS have urged public support for immigration reform – although Crossroads GPS CEO Steven Law admitted that the current bill needs an “extreme makeover.”
Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).
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