Florida Journalist Wants to Know Why CAPS Is Picking on Rubio

Recently, a Florida-based journalist asked me why Californians for Population Stabilization, headquartered in Santa Barbara, would take out ads against Marco Rubio. The suggestion was that Florida is a long way from California and that Rubio doesn’t represent the Golden State.

First, I told the reporter that CAPS has a nationwide reach and, accordingly, we concern ourselves with issues that affect the entire country. The Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act, S. 744, has the potential to be one of the most devastating bills in American history. S. 744 won’t secure the border, will give 33 million foreign-born legal work authorization and within 50 years will cost American taxpayers over $6 trillion.

Since the bill dropped in mid-April, Rubio has been the Gang of Eight’s public face, appearing on the Sunday morning talk shows and assuring listeners that they have nothing to fear—the border will be locked down tight and once S. 744 passes illegal immigration will become a thing of the past. With each passing day, Rubio’s baldfaced lies became increasingly apparent.

The Gang had good reason to make Rubio its poster boy. The other 7 have long histories of illegal immigration advocacy. John McCain, Jeff Flake, Lindsey Graham, Dick Durbin, Michael Bennet and Chuck Schumer would have been ineffective salesmen and easily identified by immigration savvy viewers as snake oil hucksters.

Unlike the others, Rubio’s political star was ascending. Rubio had won the 2010 Senate race with major Tea Party support. And, difficult as this is to imagine today, Rubio beat his major challenger, former governor Charlie Chris, largely because of his opposition to amnesty.

Here are a few key phrases from Rubio’s 2010 campaign, all of which he’s furiously working against in the final days of Senate debate. [Candidate Marco Rubio in 2010: ‘An  Earned Path to Citizenship is Basically Code for Amnesty', by Terence P. Jeffrey, CNSNews.com, June 21, 2013]

1. "First of all, earned path to citizenship is basically code for amnesty. It's what they call it. And the reality of it is this: This has to do with the bottom line that America cannot be the only country in the world that does not enforce its immigration laws. It is unfair to the people that have legally entered this country to create an alternative pathway for individuals who entered illegally and knowingly did so."
2. “You'll have people in this country that are without documents that will be able to return to the, will be able to leave this country, return to their homeland, and try to re-enter through our system that now functions, a system that makes sense."
3. “No one is going to follow the law if there is an easier way to do it."

A little more than two years after Rubio took office, he’s broken the promises that helped get him elected. Although there are many ways to sum up Rubio’s abandonment of his principles, the best is a single word: liar.

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Go to the CAPS Action Alert page to tell your Senators to read the bill before they vote later this week.