Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is trying to do what some say is impossible: Throw his party a lifeline on immigration reform without alienating those opposed to comprehensive immigration reform and without pushing Mitt Romney to flip-flop on an issue on which he ran to the right in the primary. Rubio is determined despite naysayers to come up with a Republican version of the DREAM Act. While pundits and lawmakers are already racing to embrace or reject it, Rubio told Right Turn in a phone conversation Friday afternoon that there is a lot yet to be determined before he introduces any legislation.
Is now — an election year and a time when illegal immigration has declined — the right time to fix the immigration system? Rubio isn’t setting out to fix the entire immigration system. Nevertheless he tells me, “We’ve had a broken, legal immigration system and illegal immigration.” Indeed, given the Arizona legislation, the ongoing cry from employers for more visas for qualified, high-skill workers and as many as 11 million illegal residents currently in the United States, hardly anyone is happy with the system as it is.
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In broad strokes Rubio’s version of the DREAM Act would give illegal immigrants brought here as children non-immigrant visas so they can legalize their status and go to college or join the military. They could eventually apply for residence and citizenship using the existing immigration system — just like any other legal immigrant. Unlike the original DREAM Act, Rubio’s bill would not create a special pathway to citizenship. Rubio says to lawmakers and the public: “Don’t approach it as a legalistic matter.” The legal status of this subset of the illegal-immigration population, he suggests, is “akin to refugees. Their plight is not their doing.” He explains, “A non-immigrant visa allows you to get a driver’s license, to pay taxes, to go to college. But [for citizenship] you have to access the system through a separate process.”
Read more at the Washington Post.
