LACONIA, N.H. — Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on Wednesday was given a tough question to answer on immigration, from a voter who admitted he has hired an illegal immigrant, and wanted to know if the employee could be given a pathway to U.S. citizenship.
“I hope I have legal immunity here because I’m about to confess a crime,” a middle-aged male voter told Rubio during his third town hall of the day.
“I hire an illegal alien named Fernando every weekend,” the man said. “He hasn’t raped anybody [and] he hasn’t stolen anything. How about a pathway to citizenship for Fernando?”
“I know stories like that that are heartbreaking,” Rubio said at first. “I know the story of a man who’s working in the U.S. illegally and who sends his check back to Mexico every Friday because his daughter has cancer.”
“[But] the flip side is we have to be a nation of laws,” he continued. “I do sympathize with the story you told, but I also sympathize with the American people.”
“This is a complex issue and there are stories about people in this country illegally that will frustrate you, and there are stories that will break your heart,” Rubio said.
Immigration has repeatedly come up at Rubio’s town hall events in New Hampshire, and many voters have questioned his current position on the issue due to his previous support for the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill. Rubio was one of the chief authors of the 2013 immigration bill that proposed a pathway to citizenship or illegal immigrations.
Now, the Florida senator says the U.S. must enforce its immigration laws and remedy the broken border before any legal status is offered to individuals unlawfully residing in the U.S.
“If you don’t do it that way, you’re going to have more Fernandos coming because word is going to get out that the U.S. is doing legalization,” he said Wednesday.
“I think the American people will be supportive of something very reasonable, but not until illegal immigration is taken care of once and for all,” Rubio said, drawing applause.
