Politics

Rubio dodges immigration controversy at CPAC

Neil Munro White House Correspondent
Font Size:

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio won loud applause for his speech at the first day of the CPAC meeting, but he carefully avoided mentioning his controversial effort to rewrite the nation’s immigration law.

“I do think it is interesting, and telling, that he didn’t mention immigration,” said Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations for NumbersUSA, which wants to reduce the current immigration level of 1 million people per year.

During his short speech, Rubio urged conservatives to focus on the worries of blue collar and middle class Americans..

Rubio called for a new focus on students’ debts, which have grown past $1 trillion as Americans fail to find jobs that match their expensively-earned qualifications. He also called for continued attention to overseas problems, highlighted his pro-life beliefs and celebrated marriage in the face of progressive efforts to reshape it,  earning support from groups that he will need if he runs for the the GOP’s presidential nomination in 2016.

However, the speech’s contents “completely conflicts with his [immigration] plans,” said Jenks.

“You can’t grow the middle class when you’re flooding the low-skill labor market and keeping workers impoverished,” she told The Daily Caller. “The only thing that grows is big business profits and the entitlement system.”

Those plans include the award of both work permits to at least 11 million low-skill illegal immigrants, and many work visas to high-skilled and low-skilled workers sought by businesses.

Numerous polls show the amnesty and guest-worker measures are unpopular among Americans, and very unpopular among GOP supporters. (RELATED: Immigration group says polls are all wrong)

A February poll by Reuters and Ipsos showed that 53 percent of Americans believe that all or most illegal immigrants should be deported, not given amnesty. Only 5 percent wanted all immigrants to be allowed to stay, while 31 percent said most immigrants should stay.

Democratic-voting union members are also deeply opposed to new immigration. (RELATED: Is there a split between union bosses and members on immigration?)

By avoiding any mention of immigration, Rubio “is trying to walk a fine line and hoping not to alienate” his GOP supporters or political allies who want large-scale immigration, said Mark Krikorian, the director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

Rubio’s “silence on immigration is part of his effort to avoid such alienation,” said Krikorian.

Elsewhere at the CPAC meeting, a speakers’ panel comprised of immigration-supporters earned only tepid applause, Jenks said.

“About the only applause line was when [Rep. Raul] Labrador said we shouldn’t give illegal aliens a path to citizenship,” she added.

But that the balancing act will become more difficult once the immigration bill is released, likely in early April, Krikorian said.

“We’ll see over the next month whether he decides he has to walk away from Schumer’s amnesty plan to maintain his viability with conservative voters,” he added.

Rubio’s spokesman scoffed at the criticism.

“He talks about immigration all the time — including on a ton of conservative radio shows,” spokesman Alex Conant told TheDC. “And he’s going to be talking about it a lot in coming weeks as the Senate group finalizes its proposal.”

At the start of his speech, Rubio did allude to the recent wave of immigration that has increased the foreign born population, which now comprises roughly one in eight Americans.

There is “a fear that America has changed, that our people has changed, that we have too many people that want too much from government,” he said. “That’s not true. Our people have not changed. The vast majority of the American people are hard working taxpayers, take care of their families … [and] go to work every day.”

After the speech, his office tweeted out one of Rubio’s applause lines — “’We Don’t Need a New Idea. The Idea Is America & It Still Works” — that may be interpreted as an endorsement of American-style immigration and integration.

Despite — or perhaps because of — Rubio’s decision to not mention immigration, the speech received much applause from a sympathetic crowd.

Overall, “aside from immigration … I thought it was a good speech,” said Krikorian, who added that he was speaking as citizen, not as a director of his immigration center.

Follow Neil on Twitter

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel