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Sen. Marco Rubio’s Poor Form With Florida’s Hispanic Community and Immigration Reform

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Marco RubioSenator Marco Rubio just doesn’t get it.

Last week, Florida’s business, faith and Hispanic communities came together to celebrate the defeat of Arizona-like immigration bills in the Florida legislature. They made it very clear — they are done giving out free passes to Hispanic legislators that favor anti-immigrant bills.

Yet, just a week after this defeat, Rubio decided to blatantly ignore the message from Florida’s Hispanic community and favor the bigger national GOP anti-immigrant platform.

Yesterday, Florida’s own Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) re-introduced the DREAM Act. Senator Rubio told Telemundo he would vote against the bill. Rubio, following the GOP immigration platform said:

I am in favor of enforcing current laws, immigration laws in this country. I think that when this is met then we have to follow a process to modernize the process of legal immigration in this country which may include help for many that are here, young people, that can be part of the discussion, but until we secure our borders and ensure our workplace in terms of immigration, it is very difficult to follow the second step.

Rubio is often heralded by his followers as “the future of the Republican Party in Florida”. However, with 88% of Latino voters thinking it is important for Congress to pass DREAM (and approximately 70 percent of voters overall), it will be hard for Rubio to maintain his “golden boy” reputation, while voting against opportunities for young people.