Politicians who were arguing against illegal aliens have often tried to soften it or take the sting out of it by stressing that they were for increased “legal” immigration. That allowed them to stress that they weren’t anti-immigrant, just anti-”illegal”-immigrant. It didn’t really help, they would get accused of being racists, nativists, anti-immigrant, anyway. Similarly they would often try to soft-pedal it by going soft on the whole issue of deporting the people already here.
I actually struggled with that idea myself for a long time. I finally realized, though, that the politicians can’t be trusted to do anything, including and especially securing the border, so if nothing else but for the sake of clarity I started saying that the answer is to secure the border, enforce the law, AND LET THE CHIPS FALL WHERE THEY MAY. Anything else and you’ve given the politicians wiggle room to get around it.
Rubio makes that point himself. Too bad I simply don’t believe his sincerity anymore... But he rightly points out that Americans won’t hear of any talk about any kind of amnesty until the border is secure. Frankly, there is no need for it. If there are no new illegals entering, and the laws are enforced, the problem will resolve itself over a very few years. People will go home, or find a way to legalize themselves, or get caught and sent home. Some will find ways to evade detection but that number will go down every year until it just doesn’t matter anymore.
Cruz has always been clear on the border. He hasn’t always been a hawk on legal immigration, but we need to take a hard look at that too. If 40 million people are out of work, why are we bringing in millions more every year? Seriously?
A whole lot of verbal gymnastics going on here ...