Thread: Rubio has long history of blocking immigration enforcement

All anyone talks about is the Gang of Eight Bill. Rubio's record as Speaker of the House in Florida shows that he routinely blocked legislation against illegal immigration.
Rubio has long history of blocking immigration enforcement

CHARLES C. JOHNSON
Contributor
05/24/2013



Sen. Marco Rubio blocked numerous immigration-enforcement bills when he served as speaker in the Florida House of Representatives from 2007 to 2009.

“Rubio blocked any efforts to deal with the problems of illegal immigration on the local or state level,” one former politician from South Florida, who has known Rubio since his city councilman days in West Miami, told The Daily Caller.

“He said it was because we had bigger things to deal with on the state level. Maybe that’s true. But he didn’t even let bills to the floor when they sailed through committees,” the politician, who declined to speak on the record, added.

Rubio’s record is relevant now because he’s presented himself as a moderate backer for the Democratic-led “Gang of Eight”

immigration bill. Proponents of the bill argue that its extensive loosening of immigration laws (including a “pathway to citizenship” that Rubio in 2010 described as “basically code for amnesty”) will be balanced by tougher enforcement.

But the record shows that Rubio used his power in Florida to block popular immigration-enforcement bills prior to his election-trail conversion into an immigration-hawk.

In the 2010 race, he criticized one of his opponents, Gov. Charlie Crist, for backing the amnesty proposal developed by Sen. John McCain and Ted Kennedy in 2006 and 2007.

“He would have voted for the McCain plan,” Rubio said. “I think that plan is wrong, and the reason I think it’s wrong is that if you grant amnesty … you will destroy any chance we will ever have of having a legal immigration system that works here in America,’ he said.
In 2007 and 2008, Rubio repeatedly kept tough reform bills from getting passed, despite a wave of public support for reforms.

Numerous enforcement proposals – ranging from bills requiring employers to check the status of workers to others mandating increased cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration agencies – were blocked by Rubio even though they cleared bipartisan committees.

The bills in Florida’s Legislature would have penalized farmers and government contractors caught hiring undocumented workers; placed stricter regulations on public benefits; and required local police to notify federal authorities after arresting illegal immigrants.

Rubio also stopped bills from coming to the floor that would have deported illegal immigrants in state prisons and that would have denied food stamps to illegal immigrants.

He even stopped a bipartisan proposal that would have allowed the deportation of about 5,000 illegal immigrants in Florida prisons, provided they had served half their sentence and agreed to be deported. Similar legislation saved $141 million and $13 million in prison costs in New York and Arizona.

To stop the bill, Rubio scheduled a “workshop” on immigration policy, even though the bill was supported by House Majority Leader Adam Hasner, R- Boca Raton.

The most comprehensive bill proposed in Florida was modeled after a package adopted in Oklahoma in 2007. The bill, filed by Republican State Rep. Don Brown of DeFuniak Springs, would have stopped businesses from hiring illegal immigrants and required law enforcement to determine legal status of those arrested for drunk driving or boating.

Brown also wanted to pass a law banning so-called sanctuary cities in the Sunshine State.

“I don’t know who is blocking it, but they’re doing the public a disservice,” Brown told the Sun-Sentinel on April 2008.

A bill by Republican State Rep. Gayle Harrell to prohibit municipal, county, or state money from establishing day-labor centers “never saw the light of day” because of Marco Rubio, Harrell told the Tampa Tribune’s Highlands Todaypaper.

In 2007, state legislatures passed 240 bills related to immigration – a threefold increase over 2006, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Two states – Arizona and Oklahoma – required employers to verify the legal status of their workers while other states passed laws requiring verification of work force for companies that receive government contractors or subsidies. Other states tightened identification laws and made sure only legal residents could get public benefits.

Rubio did not support any of these measures and became a target of groups like Border Control Now, which aired an Internet ad accusing him of blocking the illegal immigration bills, according to the Sun Sentinel.

Media outlets noted Rubio’s lack of interest in immigration reform.

“Top leaders in state government are not showing much support, either. Gov. Charlie Crist and House Speaker Marco Rubio, who have been at odds on many issues, have shown no signs of pushing tougher immigration laws,” The Ledger reported in Feb. 2008.

One cause for Rubio’s opposition was his alliance with the state’s just-departed Governor, Jeb Bush, who left office in 2007.

Bush didn’t want the issue talked about again after a “politically disastrous” decision [in 2004] to try to give drivers licenses to illegal immigrants,” the former politician told TheDC.

“Marco is Jeb’s boy on immigration,” he added.

Even Democrats noted how reluctant Rubio was to take up the popular reform bills.

“For some people this is a real winner, but for a lot of Republicans in this state, immigration is not a real winner,” said Rep. Keith Fitzgerald, D-Sarasota. “I just don’t know if this is an issue the Speaker and some of his closest allies want to see debated on the floor of the House.”

The issue got heated in Tallahassee.

Rubio criticized Brown for sending an “offensive” and “bad taste” cartoon to fellow state legislators with the tag line, “Don’t forget to pay your taxes on April 15. 12 million illegal aliens are counting on you.” Harrell took offense at protestors and fellow legislators calling her anti-Hispanic. “I speak Spanish,” Harrell told a local newspaper in 2008. “I have a masters degree in Latin American history. I’m not anti-Hispanic. I’m anti-illegals.”

But Rubio had some Republican allies who supported his blocking of the reform bills.

State Rep. David Rivera criticized reformers, and said the illegal immigrants “doing the jobs that not many other people are willing to do. They are being nannies…they are the ones picking vegetables…the ones cleaning toilets and bedrooms in hotels.”

Rivera went on to tell Florida’s Ledger newspaper, “The agriculture and construction and hospitality industries in Florida would collapse without undocumented immigrants.” He went on to say, “The prospects for success for these types of proposals are dim,” even though polls showed strong support for reform.

Rivera is often described as Rubio’s mentor and the two Cuban-American pols owned a foreclosed home together in North Florida. Rivera was defeated in 2012 for re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives and, according to the Miami Herald, is currently under investigation by the FBI.

Rubio’s office did not respond to repeated phone calls seeking comment.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/24/ru...n-enforcement/

Harrell

Harrell Makes Illegal Aliens A Top Priority

Gary Pinnell | Highlands Today
Published: May 28, 2008
Updated: May 6, 2013 at 06:16 PM

AVON PARK - She would have supported the 2006 Avon Park housing ordinance. She advocates English only for government signs and ballots. And she would require all illegal aliens to return to their country. But she's not anti-Hispanic.
She sponsored a house resolution urging Congress to fund the Indian River Lagoon South Restoration Project, and she supports the Everglades restoration. But she shirks the label "environmentalist."
And Gayle Harrell calls Tim Mahoney an accidental congressman.
"He was simply the luckiest guy around," said Harrell, who is running against two other Republicans for the 16th district nomination. "He would not be in the U.S. Congress if the Foley scandal had not happened."
Mahoney points to the nonpartisan magazine The National Journal, which called him the Man in the Middle, because his votes are centered between liberals and conservatives.

"What he tells you is that he's a Blue Dog Democrat, but he's voted twice for the largest tax increase in history. He's voted for amnesty. He's voted to withhold funding from the troops. He has has voted to set a date for withdrawal from Iraq, which is basically a date to surrender. I think he's a liberal in conservative clothing," Harrell said. But she admits Mahoney will be tough to beat.
A Conservative's Conservative
Last week, Harrell sent a press release saying Planned Parenthood is advertising against her. She's one of six state legislators whom Planned Parenthood is campaigning against because of her vote in favor of an unsuccessful bill in the 2008 legislature that would have required pregnant women to be shown ultrasounds of their fetus before undergoing an abortion.
Harrell defiantly called it a badge of honor. Anthony Bonna, Harrell's interim campaign manager, said the ads only highlight the conservative and pro-life stances Harrell has taken in the state legislature and would continue in Congress.
"They know she is the biggest threat that the pro-abortion movement has faced in Florida's 16th District," Bonna said.
But Harrell, who always dresses in red and always knocks on doors in her district wearing red tennis shoes, doesn't describe herself as the most conservative candidate in the race.
"We all have similar stances. We're all conservatives," said Harrell.
Tom Rooney, an attorney from Tequesta, and Hal Valeche, a former Palm Beach Gardens councilor, are declared pro-life conservatives.
"But I'm the only staunch conservative who has a voting record to show it," said Harrell, a four-term representative in the Florida House.
Friend Or Foe
Demonstrators at the Capitol said she was anti-Hispanic.
"I'm anti-illegal," she firmly retorted, although she agrees that some xenophobes crouch behind the term anti-illegal as a racial code word.
She and her children speak Spanish, she taught Spanish and Latin American studies in public schools and the community college.
And, chimed in her husband, they've had 10 Latin American exchange students.
However, she thinks ballots and government signs ought to be printed in English, and that English ought to be declared the official language.
Everyone needs to learn to speak English, if you want to be part of the United States, part of Highlands County."
She would continue building a wall between America and Mexico, patrol the border by satellite, and use the Coast Guard to prevent boat people from coming across the Caribbean to Florida.
"And then we can talk about a guest worker program," she said.
Asked in an interview about Avon Park's attempt to pass a housing ordinance which would fine homeowners who rent houses to illegals, fine employers who hire illegals, and require inspections of houses where migrant farmer workers live, Harrell initially ducked the question. However, she called back the next day.
"I would support that ordinance," Harrell said, without qualification. But she would make sure the homeowner and the employer have an Internet mechanism to verify the legal status of the renter, as well as immunity from discrimination lawsuits if the computer mistakenly said the applicant is illegal.
Harrell was miffed that six legislative bills that would forbid illegal residents to bid for state contracts and get jobs didn't pass either. They included HB 821, her bill to prohibit municipal, county or state money from being spent to establish or maintain day-labor centers like El Sol in Jupiter where illegal immigrants gather for jobs.
"Never saw the light of day," Harrell said.
Why? Speaker Marco Rubio, she said. Rubio, R-Miami, is the son of Cuban immigrants.
Issues
In April, Harrell chided Democrats for not doing something to prevent rising gasoline prices. What should the Congress have done?
She took the line, standard with Democrats and Republicans, that America must become energy independent, but to her that means drilling in the Dakotas, not off-shore Stuart. She's also for nuclear power, but it should be noted that she lives within five miles from the St. Lucie nuclear power plant.
What should President Bush have done? "It's not a one-term problem," she replied.
Among the three Republicans, she is third in the money race with $600,000 to Rooney's $700,000 and Valeche's $750,000. She figures she'll need another $250,000 to win the Aug. 26 primary, and $3-$4 million for the general election. Mahoney has already raised $2.2 million.
FAST FACTS
Age: 64
Residence: North River Shores, near Stuart
Elected: Florida House of Representatives in 2000
Re-elected: Three times, now term-limited
Birthplace: Nashville, Tenn.
Family: Husband James, children Stephanie, Jennifer, James Jr., Melinda
Religion: Presbyterian


http://www.highlandstoday.com/news/agri-leader/2008/may/28/harrell-makes-illegal-aliens-top-priority-ar-311397/#sthash.Okkzdzo6.dpuf

Bill Summary
HB 821 Relating to Illegal Immigration (2008 Session)

• SPONSORS
• SUMMARY
• COMMITTEES OF REFERENCE
• ACTIONS
• RELATED BILLS
• BILL TEXT
• STAFF ANALYSIS
• STATUTE CITATIONS

SPONSORS
by Harrell Co Sponsors: Needelman, Reagan, Schenck
SUMMARY
Illegal Immigration: Designates act "Florida Safe Borders Act of 2008"; requires specified law enforcement officers & clerks of circuit court to report to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement suspected illegal aliens who are arrested, detained, or convicted of felony; provides penalty for failure to make such report; requires specified notice to law enforcement officers; requires OAG, FDLE, & all state & local law enforcement agencies to vigorously pursue all opportunities to collect federal reimbursement of moneys spent to enforce federal immigration laws; prohibits restrictions on reporting of immigration status information by public employees; prohibits local government restrictions concerning immigration law enforcement; requires verification of immigration status of persons confined for DUI or BUI; ... Effective Date: October 1, 2008COMMITTEES OF REFERENCE
H Government Efficiency & Accountability Council
H Policy & Budget Council
» H State Affairs
ACTIONS
02/05/08
HOUSE
Filed

02/11/08
HOUSE
Referred to Government Efficiency & Accountability Council; Policy & Budget Council

03/06/08
HOUSE
Referred to Committee on State Affairs by Government Efficiency & Accountability Council

04/04/08
HOUSE
On Committee agenda - State Affairs, 04/08/08, 4:00 pm, Morris Hall - Workshop

04/08/08
HOUSE
Workshopped by State Affairs

05/02/08
HOUSE
Died in Committee on State Affairs

http://public.lobbytools.com/index.cfm?type=bills&id=23307

RUBIO "DUPES" FLORIDA CITIZENS & TALLAHASSEE!


ploaded on Apr 22, 2008
VERSION 3 / MINOR ENHANCEMENTS / SPELL & FACT CHECK DONE



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YplF...5886BB&index=2

South FLorida is a cesspool of grafters con men, extortionists, embezzlers, etc.

Sounds like Rubio fits right in. JMO