Republican Sen. Marco Rubio is crafting his own version of “the Dream Act.” He is conferring with Hispanic groups normally associated with the Democrats such as Gaby Pacheco, a vocal Dream Act activist, and even La Raza. Oh, I know, heaven forbid we sit down with those we disagree and hammer out compromises, but sometimes that is the way things get done. The truth that so many in the GOP refuse to see is that if we lose Hispanics to the Democrats, then we will never win the White House again. That is how important it is. It’s not only bad for us, it’s bad for Hispanics. The Democrats seem to only offer dependency on the government, and I know the Hispanic community is not well served by that. As it has been said over and over, Hispanics are natural conservatives. They are family oriented, strong believers in entrepreneurship, usually religious, and not given to the politically correct idiocy that the Democrats try to force upon us. But they won’t vote for a party or a person who they feel doesn’t care about their issues.
Illegal immigration is a problem of our own making. We ignored the laws, we ignored the consequences, because we liked having a cheap work force. Now, we have children of illegal immigrats, not born here, but brought here very young, going to college, in the only country they have ever known. This has created a different part of the illegal immigration issue. These are not people who snuck in this country of their own volition illegally. They were brought here by their parents. They were educated here. They are, for all intent and purposes, Americans, just as the children born here of illegal immigrants. Now, many of them have graduated college and are still not legal. What should we do? Deport them? Where? To a country they have never known? We have to face this issue. It’s an important one to the Hispanic community. I think Rubio is doing what he knows to be right, and whether you completely agree with him as a conservative, you need to support him here.
Rubio’s plan is still being hammered out, but it allows these students to attend college in a legitimate manner: Critics say that it must provide a pathway to citizenship. It seems to me that if you are here legally, anyone can go to the back of the line and apply for citizenship.
“The general concept is that [students] would receive the equivalent of a non-immigrant visa, it legitimizes you,” he said of his alternate DREAM Act proposal. “It doesn’t allow you to to become a resident or citizen, however it doesn’t prohibit you from applying.”
“There’s no limbo” that the students will be stuck in under his plan, he said. “The limbo is what they’re in now.”
Of course, senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, has met with the activists Rubio has talked with, and encouraged them to not deal with Rubio. We can’t have the Democrats not having that wedge issue for the election, right?
The GOP allowed loud anti immigrant voices to turn the public against George Bush’s perfectly reasonable compromise on illegal immigration when he was President. I can only hope they don’t make the same mistake again.
I have always loved Marco Rubio. I hope Mitt Romney is smart enough to listen to him on this issue, and smart enough to pick him for V.P.
Kathleen McKinley is a a conservative activist. She blogs at The Houston Chronicle, RightWingNews, Newsbusters, and her own site. She co-hosts SmartGirlNation on FTRadio for SmartGirlPolitics, an organization of conservative women to promote issues that are important to them. This is cross posted from her Houston Chronicle blog.