Florida GOP Senator Marco Rubio has been talking about immigration lately. But, he’s not making himself very clear. This week, he told an inside-the-beltway breakfast hosted by Politico that he we need comprehensive reform, but can’t do it comprehensively — or something like that. The headline of the post at the San Francisco Chronicle sums up the confusion, Rubio advocates for comprehensive effort, not bill, on immigration. Huh?
At DailyKos, Markos tries to make some sense of Rubio’s chatter in a post titled, “Marco Rubio thinks immigration reform should be comprehensive, but not really“:
Let’s try to unpack this nonsense: Rubio thinks immigration should be dealt with comprehensively, but not in a comprehensive way. Instead, it should be done in piecemeal bills, that combined offer some sort of comprehensive solution, but isn’t one, because, you know, it’s piecemeal.
Republicans are terrified of two things: 1) a browner America that votes heavily Democratic, and 2) their white bigot base. So it figures that their response to the looming immigration battle would be so incoherent. It’s a lose-lose for them.
That’s why they’ve trotted out Rubio to try and stymie this new push for reform. Each one of Rubio’s piecemeal bills would be blocked and obstructed by a recalcitrant GOP desperate to avoid anything that might reward those lazy brown people who are so lazy that they’re stealing all the good jobs. Like picking watermelons in 110 degree temperature during 14-hour days. Lazy shit like that.
As a benefit, each one of those piecemeal bills would earn a fraction of the media attention of a broader truly comprehensive effort, meaning that Republicans could better hide their obstructionist efforts, stemming their losses among the crazy-fast-growing Latino and Asian communities.
Based on every indication, Congress will be debating immigration reform early next year. President Obama is going to make it a priority. Rubio can be part of the solution – or he can continue to be part of the problem. And, the solution is citizenship for 11 million.
Senator Rubio will have to decide which path he’ll choose. One path, the one that leads to citizenship, could provide some redemption for the GOP with Latinos. The other path, the ugly anti-immigrant one that GOP has been on for awhile, will lead them right off a demographic cliff.
