Talk radio and Fox News host Sean Hannity is one of the biggest opponents of amnesty for illegal immigrants, but that wasn’t always the case.
Hannity, who has anti-immigration candidate Donald Trump on his shows more frequently than any other presidential hopeful and has been a staunch critic of Florida Senator [crscore]Marco Rubio[/crscore]’s past on the issue, supported a pathway to full citizenship for illegals in late as 2012 — months before the “Gang of 8” amnesty bill was written and when the New York Times says Rubio “pushed for immigration reform with conservative media.”
On his radio show, Hannity regularly talks of how he’s asked Rubio if his involvement with the “Gang of 8” immigration bill was a mistake, something Rubio won’t directly admit. But Hannity himself supported amnesty in the bill long before then.
In the wake of Mitt Romney’s loss to Barack Obama and his desire to “get rid of the immigration issue altogether,” Hannity told his radio audience on Thursday, November 8, 2012:
It’s simple to me to fix it. I think you control the border first. You create a pathway for those people that are here — you don’t say you’ve got to go home. And that is a position that I’ve evolved on. Because, you know what, it’s got to be resolved. The majority of people here, if some people have criminal records you can send them home, but if people are here, law-abiding, participating for years, their kids are born here, you know, first secure the border, pathway to citizenship, done. Whatever little penalties you wanna put in there, if you want, but then it’s done. You can’t let the problem continue, it’s got to stop.
According to the Times, Rubio’s “push” and the early stages of the “Gang of 8” didn’t start until January 17, 2013.
Hannity has since “devolved” on the issue, supporting the populist Trump approach.
TheDC was reminded of this change in position by Fox News Contributor Stephen Hayes.
Hannity had come out for a “path to citizenship” in Nov 2012, two months earlier. https://t.co/BRhgwJAeNhhttps://t.co/1TwenKBU7Y
— Stephen Hayes (@stephenfhayes) February 28, 2016
Listen to Hannity announce support his amnesty: