Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) went on Face the Nation over the weekend to talk about the Trump Administration’s ongoing practice of separating families and children at the border, where he proceeded to be a font of inaccuracies and falsehoods that we know he knows are wrong.
Here’s what he said about the separation of children at the border:
SENATOR RUBIO: Well I would be open to changing that law but the better law to change is to secure our border and to send a clear message that you cannot continue to enter the United States illegally. It is actually inhumane not to secure our border because we are sending out a message that is encouraging people to come here we have to understand a lot of these people that are crossing children are being trafficked here. They are being brought here by criminal groups that help guide them and often take advantage of them and brutalize them on the path towards the United States and the ability to cross that border is a magnet that is drawing this behavior.
There’s an impressive amount of dishonesty in such a concise statement, which is not surprising to us considering that this is Marco Rubio, the every-which-way flip-flopper who perhaps first made a name for himself by turning against the 2013 immigration bill that he was originally for.
There’s the fact that the U.S. border is already secure, and has been for years, despite Republicans’ constant demagogueing to the contrary. And there’s the fact that women and children are currently coming to the border not to break the law, but to seek asylum — because they are fleeing for their lives, and seeking safety as they are allowed to do under international law. And the Trump Administration is separating them unnecessarily.
But mostly, it’s just too cute that Rubio is “open to changing that law” that separates families at the border, even though he knows it’s not a law. It’s a policy that the Trump Administration started for deterrence purposes, despite the obvious cruelty and pointlessness of the practice. As Ur Jaddou, Director of DHS Watch at America’s Voice, said today, “this is a deliberate choice, and a deliberate policy in pursuit of deterrence. And it is an abomination.” Senator Rubio knows that stopping the separation of families at the border isn’t a matter of changing any law — it’s a matter of a change in the Administration that he and other Republicans have so cowardly helped to stand up.
And to be clear, Congress could certainly pass a law that prevents the Trump Administration from separating families. But they won’t, because they’ve failed to act on every matter relating to immigration so far in the Trump Administration.
For now, all we have is Rubio: no soul, no backbone, and lying through his teeth about Administration policies he fully understands but is speaking falsehoods about anyway.
