Florida Senator Marco Rubio recently told reporters and Fox news commentators that he thinks it’s “going to be difficult” but that it “is possible” to make progress on immigration reform under the Trump Administration.
Rubio appeared to be proposing that recent movement on Trump’s law enforcement policies and efforts to move immigration laws into a more “merit-based” system, could open a path for providing status to law abiding Immigrants, saying, “then you can do something very reasonable with the people who have been here a long time who are not gang bangers, who are not criminals, who are not a threat to public safety.”
And as a member of the bipartisan “Gang of Eight,” Senator Rubio was involved in significant comprehensive immigration reform legislation proposed in 2013, which would have created a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S.. Unfortunately the measure failed to gain the needed support in the Republican held House of Representatives and did not become law.
Immigration advocates are heartened at the recent statements by Rubio and other Republicans, but remain skeptical about the possibility of such a measure in the near future, given Trump’s history of contradictory positions on immigration reform. ….
