Senator Marco Rubio says that he sympathizes with American citizens who believe that undocumented immigrants in the United States are taking advantage. Many are seeing his comment as an attempt to reach out to the more conservative members of the Republican Party.
The comment is made in the Florida lawmaker’s new book, American Dreams: Restoring Economic Opportunity for Everyone, with the Senate seen to be laying the groundwork for a possible run at being the party’s presidential candidate for 2016. Perhaps ironically, Rubio was one of the Gang of Eight responsible for the comprehensive immigration reform bill that passed the Senate two years ago, only to grind to a halt in the House of Representatives; now, he says that he would prefer to see a piecemeal approach to the immigration problem.
Rubio believes that the first thing Congress should do is to secure the border and then begin enforcing the laws in the workplace before tackling the problem of the millions of undocumented immigrants already living and working in the United States.
“When people hear that we have over 12 million people here illegally, they feel as if we are being taken advantage of,” Rubio writes. “They see how hard it is to find and keep a steady and well-paying job, and they worry that more people will mean more competition for already scarce work. That’s not nativism. That’s human nature.”
Rubio added that the Republican Party is aware of the vital need for reform; however, the party remains captive to those opposed to reform in any form.