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Rubio on Immigration Reform: 'I Don’t Believe that this is the Salvation or the Doom of the GOP'

On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio appeared on Bill Bennetts radio show to weigh in on immigration reform. Rubio insisted that his support for immigration reform has nothing to do with politics and rejected arguments that it will help or hurt the Republicans.

I believe that the problem that we have with immigration is a very serious problem in our country, Rubio said. We have a broken legal immigration system. I always say this. Even if we didnt have a single illegal immigrant, wed still have to do immigration reform because the legal immigration system we have is antiquated and broken. We dont have real ways to enforce our immigration laws. The border in certain sectors is not fully secure. We have no way of tracking people that overstay visas. We have no way of confirming peoples eligibility to work when they get hired, theres no E-Verify. And topping it all off, due to mistakes that were made when I was in ninth-grade, by the way there are 11 million human beings living in the United States, most of them we have no idea who they are. Theyve been here longer than a decade. Theyre having children that are U.S. citizens. They live among us. Theyre probably going to be here for the rest of their lives, and leaving what we have in place is de facto amnesty.

So my goal here is not politics, Rubio insisted. I dont believe that this is the salvation or the doom of the Republican Party. This is an issue that confronts our country, and it has to be solved because its bad for America. Thats why Im involved in the issue.

Rubio also called for more border security in the immigration reform bill.

Now you mention legalization, I think theres confusion, Rubio said. "Permanent residency in the United States, a green card, thats what permanent residency is. In this bill, that does not happen until there is an E-Verify system that is fully implemented, until there is an entry-exit system that is fully implemented, and until there is a border security plan that is fully implemented. And what Im asking for in this bill is that we go one step further, and we say that border security plan has to be fully implemented before the green card is available. That border security plan should not be left to the Department of Homeland Security. Lets design it, lets work with the border patrol, lets put it in the bill the specifics in the bill so we know exactly what has to happen on the border, so that we can be sure that it will work.

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