I have been asked several times why I believe Marco Rubio's approach to put illegal immigration problem is a better approach than that of Ted Cruz or Donald Trump. Here is my answer.
Rubio always has and always will defend families first. The fact that Mexico sucks is not in dispute. If I lived there and had the opportunity or chance to come to America and give my kids and family a better life than drug cartels and sex trade I would do it in a heartbeat. Wouldn't you? The fact that these people are running from the bad stuff and wanting a better life for themselves and their families shows their moral character and love for their children. They are not criminals for the most part. They are just good parents. Sure there is a huge problem with drugs crossing the border and gangs coming into our country. Rubio is not and never has offered those people a pathway to citizenship. Rubio's bill focused on three things. Securing the border, fixing our legal immigration system, and offering a road to citizenship for those people living here in the shadows who have not broken the law to the best of their ability once they have come here. The problem (and Rubio has recognized this) with the bill is that it didn't require the border to be secure first and it allowed Obama to enact part of the bill and ignore other parts. So Rubio has admitted that we need to deal with the immigration process in a peace meal way, one issue at a time.
What Ted Cruz and others are unwilling to admit and what Rubio points out, is that doing nothing is amnesty by default. Those 11 million people already live here! But they are living here without paying taxes, without buying car insurance, without purchasing medical insurance, and all of this costs the American people millions of dollars each year. The proposals that Ted Cruz has offered are so far right wing that they will never pass through congress. They will deport parents of US citizens (Like it or not anchor babies are American according to the constitution) and destroy families. It will also destroy the Republican Party because once you start doing that you will lose the support of moderate and independent voters. So the proposals offered up by those in the Ted Cruz camp are amnesty by default because they will never become law. With Rubio's plan at least these people will start paying taxes, they will stop going to the ER for every small medical issue, they will stop running from accidents because they have no insurance, and they will no longer be hiding in the shadows as second class people. Also it's important to note that if and when these people become citizens it would be much better for the Republican Party if the plan that helped them was a plan put forth by a Republican President, not a Democrat. Sometime in the future there will be another democrat majority in the house and senate, just like there was in 2008. And instead Obamacare being forced upon the American people we will have immigration reform, written by the democrats, and passed by the democrats, it will be true amnesty, it won't care about the border security or making them pay a fine, and it won't address several other important issues that Rubio's Bill addressed. For me it is important to note that our founding fathers welcomed immigrants to our country. They did not build walls to keep them out, but they placed the Statue of Liberty to invite them all to come. Japanese, Chinese, Germans, and Irish came here in droves. They did not need to jump through legal hoops or wait in line, and we didn't deport anyone who came looking for freedom and a better way life. Do we have the right and the need to secure our borders? Of course we do. But shouldn't we use some compassion and common sense when it comes to people running from drug cartels as well?
