One of the top pro-amnesty Republican elites insisted that GOP establishment “golden boy” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) “remains committed” to granting amnesty to illegal immigrants.
Alfonso Aguilar, who, along with his organization, has been one of the chief proponents of comprehensive amnesty legislation, first said in a Wednesday MSNBC appearance that “there’s an effort by the left to really question Marco Rubio’s commitment to immigration reform” before insisting that Rubio is now just saying “let’s change tactics” by looking at border security, strengthening domestic enforcement and then providing a “path to legal status” for the country’s illegal immigrants.
“I’ve known Marco Rubio,” Aguilar said. “I actually worked with his office and with him when he was working on the [Gang of Eight] immigration bill in the Senate. If there is someone who remains committed to immigration reform, it’s Marco Rubio.”
He added that if the GOP is “smart enough” to nominate a candidate like Jeb Bush or Rubio “who are good on immigration… I think the Democrats have a problem.”
After saying that illegal immigrant criminals will have to be deported before Congress can pass an immigration reform bill Rubio said in a Thursday Fox News interview that it is impractical to deport 11 million illegal immigrants, especially those who have been in the country for 15 years.
“The flipside of it is, I do not believe you can round up and deport 11 million people, especially people who have been here 15 years, have not otherwise violated the law, can pass background checks and so forth,” he said.
Paul Singer, the hedge-fund billionaire who has been a big proponent of open borders and amnesty, recently backed Rubio. And the Washington Post noted that the “Republican elites” are now “celebrating” Rubio “as the party’s golden boy.”
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who was in the Senate’s “Gang of Eight” with Rubio, recently said that Rubio’s “fingerprints are all over that bill.”
“It has a lot of Rubio imprints,” Schumer told CNN. “He understood it, he molded it, he made it a tough path to citizenship. But we all agreed to it, and it would have to be a tough path to citizenship. But he was all for it.”
Aguilar also trashed Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL) on left-wing National Public Radio on Wednesday, saying it was “ridiculous” for Cruz to Jeb Bush’s proposal to give legal status to illegal immigrants “a form of amnesty.”
He called Sessions, who has been the foremost champion of American workers in Congress, a “restrictionist” (American workers would call Sessions a patriot) and also blamed Cruz for arguing “that immigration depresses wages for American workers,” which Aguilar said “is a total fallacy.”
As Breitbart News extensively documented, though, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office determined that Rubio’s “Gang of Eight” bill would lower the wages of American workers.
But according to Aguilar, “that’s the argument of nativists.”
Aguilar, somehow speaking for all Latinos, said it would be “frustrating for Hispanics” if the GOP nominated Cruz, who he said would have a “very hard time winning over Hispanics… with that kind of language” and “those kinds of proposals.”
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.