During an informal interview with CNBC‘s John Harwood, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said recent comments by Donald Trump and his fellow presidential candidates concerning “anchor babies” are not reflective of the GOP in general.
“This is not the Republican Party,” the presidential contender said. “These are individual candidates who are responsible for their own rhetoric and what they say.”
“I have people who are very conservative who dislike illegal immigration and want us to do something about it, but we have to be a sovereign country too,” Rubio said, before adding that “we have to have laws and if we don’t enforce our laws, our laws don’t count.”
In a policy essay on immigration published last weekend, Trump said he would eliminate birthright citizenship if elected president. A number of candidates including Rubio’s colleagues in the Senate — Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Lindsey Graham — agreed with Trump’s claim shortly after, arguing that birthright citizenship incentivizes illegal immigration.
Rubio split from those candidates on Thursday, saying the so-called “anchor babies” are “people with stories, not just statistics.”
The junior senator from Florida was born in the U.S. to two legal Cuban immigrants and has often drawn criticism from conservative voters for his previous support of a pathway to citizenship for individuals residing in the country illegally.
When asked by Harwood if “birthright citizenship is one of the things that makes America exceptional,” Rubio responded: “Yes, and that’s why I’m not in favor of repealing the 14th Amendment.”
“But what’s the flipside of that argument? There is a legitimate debate and that is, you have people coming to this country expressly for the purpose of having children,” he added.
