Populists concerned about the impact of an exploding foreign-born population on U.S. workers and on the security of the country see Sen. [crscore]Marco Rubio[/crscore]’s sudden rise in the Republican presidential primary race as an imminent threat to their cause.
“We’re going to end up a third world country,” Laura Wilkerson told The Daily Caller News Foundation, referring to the scenario of a Rubio presidency. Her son Josh was brutally murdered his senior year of high school by a classmate who was an illegal alien.
“If Rubio gets it, I think he’s all for amnesty, and I believe that he’s just going to be following the same path Obama is on, which is keeping the open border and not taking care of our own,” she said, adding: “I think four, eight more years of that would be just devastation.”
“Trump is the only hope for Americans currently being replaced by foreign guest workers on the various visa programs such as H-1B,” Leo Perrero, one of the Disney IT workers laid off and forced to train their foreign replacements, told TheDCNF.
“Rubio’s proposed I-Squared bill would mean the end of Americans working in the IT field,” he added, referring to a bill that would dramatically expand the H-1B visa program. “This bill has been pushed by the very largest tech giants, one of whom is one of Rubio’s largest campaign contributors.”
After an unexpectedly strong showing in the Iowa caucuses Monday, Rubio is positioned well to challenge frontrunners Donald Trump and Sen. [crscore]Ted Cruz[/crscore] for the nomination. He’s surging in New Hampshire ahead of the state’s primary next week, and is expected to do well in South Carolina. Should he win the nomination, it would undoubtedly be a devastating blow to the populist insurgency driving Cruz and Trump’s candidacy.
“Rubio is the front man for the open borders syndicate,” Ann Coulter told TheDCNF, referring to a constituency of Americans who for political and business reasons want amnesty and essentially open borders. “His job is to make their criminal enterprise look like a legitimate business operation.”
“Every word, every breath, ever rehearsed speech is a veneer to lend credibility to the greatest con in American history, to dissolve our borders and ensure that no Republican can ever be elected president again,” she added. “Rubio is the manchurian candidate. Jeb, McCain, Lindsay — none of them worked because they were all too transparent, too obvious.”
Many of the same conservatives who grew to distrust Rubio after his 2013 push for the failed Gang of Eight amnesty bill that would have dramatically expanded already extreme immigration levels, now seem ready to forgive his involvement. But Rubio has not actually repented the bill’s policies, only the approach he took to implementing them.
“The bottom line is this, we are not going to be able to do anything on this issue until we first bring illegal immigration under control,” Rubio said in a recent Fox News debate. (RELATED: Here’s Five Quick Reality Checks For Anyone Debating Immigration)
“He won’t,” Mary Anne Mendoza, the mother of a cop killed by a drunk-driving illegal alien, told TheDCNF in reference to Rubio’s promise. “Rubio is not going to care,” she added. “He’s going to do what he wants to do. There’s an agenda behind him that leans toward amnesty for illegals, and that is our number one problem.”
“Trump may rub some people the wrong way when he says things,” she added. “But at least he speaks the truth, and won’t be bought by special interest groups.”
After former Governor Mitt Romney lost the presidential race to President Barack Obama in 2012, Trump called his opposition to amnesty and policy of self-deportation “maniacal.” But he has now planted his feet firmly in the camp of immigration hawks like Republican Sen. [crscore]Jeff Sessions[/crscore], adopting a platform of reduced legal immigration and a position against anything that could be construed as amnesty.
Rubio was a Tea Party darling in the 2010 election that brought him to the Senate, but many of those conservatives now view him as a sellout who betrayed the base on immigration.
“Once in office, he betrayed those who supported him,” Ed Martin, president of Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum and immediate past Chairman of the Missouri Republican Party, told TheDCNF. “Now, he is back to saying conservative soundbites because he is again running in a Republican primary.”
“If elected, Rubio seems poised to sign amnesty and a huge increase in legal immigration,” he added. “We do not trust Rubio on this central issue and, in addition, if he is the nominee, Americans will see no difference between him and the Democrat which will assure that Republicans lose again.”
Wilkerson hasn’t decided whether she’ll support Trump or Cruz in the primary, but agrees with the assessment that Rubio can’t be trusted and blames the media for much of his newfound support. “The media has chosen Rubio as their guy now,” she told TheDCNF. “And you can tell that’s what their position is.”
“I’m aggravated by the media,” she added. “I think most people are so ignorant of the fact that the media tells exactly — it’s not news anymore. It’s what whoever owns it wants you to know.”
Speaking again to the possibility of a Rubio presidency, Wilkerson added: “You can’t give up, because you know I’m thinking about my own kids and grandkids. You can’t give up. We’ll just have to be in his face over and over.”
A spokesman for the Rubio campaign did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment.
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