Marco Rubio requested and voted for a West Miami city resolution in 1999 that urged the U.S. government to speed up processing of applications by Nicaraguan, Cuban, and Haitian illegal immigrants for permanent resident status, documents obtained by The Daily Caller reveal.
The Daily Caller had previously reported on Rubio voting for a 1998 city resolution that urged the federal government to extend the “Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act” (NACARA) to Honduran migrants. NACARA allowed for illegal immigrants who had been in the United States since December 1995 to apply for permanent resident status and receive a stay of removal. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Rubio Supported Amnesty As Far Back As 1998)
The resolution, #99-10, was voted on by the West Miami city commission on July 14, 1999. The agenda of the meeting reveals that then-commissioner Rubio had requested the vote for the resolution.
The full title of the resolution is: “Resolution of the City of West Miami, Florida urging the U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and the Commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service Doris Meissner to speedily, efficiently process and resolve [all] NACARA and HPIRA [applications] submitted by Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Haitian nationals, in the interest of compassion, due process and fundamental fairness.”
Numbers USA has estimated that, “the 10-year impact of the NACARA Amnesty on U.S. population growth is estimated to be 966,480,” and the “10-year impact of the Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act on U.S. Population growth is estimated to be 125,000.”
The resolution continues to lament the, “bureaucratic delays [that] have produced waves of anxiety, insecurity and fear in our community, especially for the applicants who suffered from the uncertainly of not knowing whether they can be reunited as a family in the United States.”
The Rubio campaign did not return a request for comment by TheDC.
Resolution # 1999-10 Asking to Resolve Al Nacara and Hpira Applications