Rubio
Says Immigration Bill Still Has a Way to Go
Published: March 31, 2013 - New York Times
WASHINGTON — As several of the eight senators taking
part in a bipartisan effort to overhaul to the nation’s immigration
laws appeared on television Sunday to voice optimism about the negotiations,
Senator Marco
Rubio, a member of the group, issued a strongly worded message of caution.
“No Final Agreement on Immigration Legislation Yet”
was the headline, all in capital letters, of a statement released by his office
on Sunday.
An aide to Mr. Rubio, Republican of Florida, said his
comments were not intended to suggest that a deal was unlikely. Instead, his aim
was to keep expectations in check until the details of the legislation are
complete, and to urge the group to take the bill through “regular order,” which
he says is necessary to garner public support. That process involves public
hearings and amendments from other senators both in committee and on the Senate
floor.
As the group of eight senators, split evenly between
Democrats and Republicans, inches closer to a bill that would provide a path to
citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants already in the country, Mr.
Rubio seems determined to keep his conservative credentials intact.
Mr. Rubio was elected in 2010 as part of a Tea Party
wave and is considered an early contender for the Republican presidential
nomination in 2016. Although that race is still far away, any Oval Office
ambitions that Mr. Rubio has are likely to hinge, in part, on his success at
selling an immigration overhaul to his party’s conservative base, which has
resisted a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
Despite Mr. Rubio’s remarks, Congressional aides and
several of the eight senators say the group is still on track to introduce
comprehensive immigration legislation when Congress returns from its break.
“It will be rolled out next week,” Senator Lindsey
Graham, Republican of South Carolina and a member of the group, said on the CNN
program “State of the Union” on Sunday.
In his statement,
Mr. Rubio did not say the group was not proceeding apace; he simply counseled
restraint.
“I’m encouraged by reports of an agreement between
business groups and unions on the issue of guest workers,” he said. “However,
reports that the bipartisan group of eight senators have agreed on a legislative
proposal are premature.”
Mr. Rubio was referring to news
reports on Saturday that the nation’s leading business and labor groups had
agreed on a guest worker program for low-skilled workers, one of the final
sticking points in the negotiations among the eight senators.
“We have made substantial progress, and I believe we
will be able to agree on a legislative proposal that modernizes our legal
immigration system, improves border security and enforcement and allows those
here illegally to earn the chance to one day apply for permanent residency
contingent upon certain triggers being met,” Mr. Rubio said. “However, that
legislation will only be a starting point.”
On Saturday, as news broke of the deal between
business and labor, Mr. Rubio sounded a similar note of caution, sending a
letter to Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the
Judiciary Committee, warning him not to take up an immigration overhaul with
“excessive haste.”
At the outset of the bipartisan group’s talks, Mr.
Rubio went on something of a one-man media tour, trying to sell the broad
principles behind an immigration overhaul to conservative hosts on television
and radio. Recently he has been saying he believes an immigration bill needs to
be the result of a deeply deliberate process.
His news release on Sunday seemed another attempt to
make sure that the immigration legislation does not get out ahead of him — and
that he remains integral to every step of the process.
On
the NBC program “Meet the Press,” two other senators in the bipartisan group
— Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, and Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New
York — were asked about a possible disagreement with Mr. Rubio. Both men played
down Mr. Rubio’s statements and offered him words of praise.
“It’s semantics,” Mr. Schumer said, brushing away the
possibility of any tension within the group. “And he’s correctly pointing out
that that language hasn’t been fully drafted. There’ll be little kerfuffles. But
I don’t think any of us expect there to be problems.”
Mr. Schumer added: “He’s been an active and strong
participant. He’s had a lot of input into the bill.”
Similarly, Mr. Flake called Mr. Rubio “extremely
important to this effort,” and he said he agreed with Mr. Rubio that any
immigration legislation should go through the process of public hearings and
amendments.
Mr. Flake and Mr. Schumer said they remained confident
that a deal was forthcoming. “I expect that we’re going to have agreement among
the eight,” Mr. Schumer said.
On CNN, Mr. Graham said he was confident that a bill
would be introduced imminently. “I think we’ve got a deal,” he said. “We’ve got
to write the legislation, but 2013, I hope, will be the year that we pass
bipartisan immigration reform.”