Marco Rubio Opines on E-Verify Which Shaped Rick Scott-Bill McCollum Clash

E-Verify was one of the major bones of contention between Rick Scott and Bill McCollum during the divisive 2010 Republican gubernatorial primary -- but one of the leading conservatives in the Sunshine State offered cautionary words on that program on Monday.Responding to a constituent, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., continued to advocate for immigration reform.

The problem with immigration, though, is that it is complex because it is all interwoven, Rubio said. Its all related to each other. Its literally impossible to do one part without doing the other. Let me give you an example. You can do border security, you can build fences, and we should. You should hire more border patrol agents, and we should. You should improve technology, and we should. But that alone is not enough because the magnet of employment is still in place. If we dont have an E-Verify system for workers in America, for every single employer in America, people are still going to try to come. They are going to try to come for those jobs. Thats why you have to do E-Verify and border security, but even those two things are not enough. You also need to relate it to a guest-worker program. Why? Because our economy does need temporary workers in certain sectors like agriculture. And if you do not find a legal way for people to come here and be able to do that, then they will come illegally to do that, and so thats why you also need a guest-worker program.

Rubio insisted that immigration reform remained a major issue though he raised doubts about making E-Verify mandatory.

Related to all of that, of course, are the other issues involved in immigration reform, Rubio said. For example, the 11 million that are here now. You can only imagine, if we implement universal E-Verify -- meaning no one can work in America unless they have legal documentation, but you have 11 million people sitting there that one day we intend to get to but not now, who are not legalized -- none of those 11 million will be able to work anymore. So now youre going to have a very serious problem in our society a bunch of people in America that want to work, can work, but cannot because of E-Verify. So its better to understand who they are and legalize them now so they can start paying their taxes, and start proving who they are and what theyre here for. In addition to all of that, we want to freeze the problem that we have in place right now. Right now its 11 million, we think its about 11 million people not all of them are going to qualify for this, by the way but we think we can get them to come forward, learn English, pay a fine, start paying taxes, undergo background checks for national security and criminality. We can understand who the problem is and freeze it in place. If we wait to do it in the future, that 11 million, that number could grow. And it will be harder and harder to sift out those who have been here long enough to qualify and those who do not.

An interesting move from Rubio -- especially as he continues to ponder running for president in 2016 and E-Verifys role in Florida Republican politics.