Rubio: Secured Border Must Be In Immigration Bill

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, to Candy Crowley on CNN’s “State of the Union”…

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN HOST: Let me ask you a broad question first. As you know, the 1986 Immigration Reform has been criticized in hindsight as something that only encouraged undocumented workers to come into the U.S. We went from something from three million immigration workers in the Reagan era before immigration reform, now we’re dealing with 11 million. What in this bill is going to ensure that that doesn’t happen again?

SENATOR RUBIO: Well, three things. First of all, a universal e-verify system, which means you won’t be able to find a job in the United States if you can’t pass that check. Secondly, an entry-exit system. You know, 40% of our illegal immigration are people who enter legally and then they overstay their visas and we don’t really know who they are because, for the most part, we only track when people come in. We don’t track even when they leave. And third is real border security, including fencing. And all these three things are going to happen because they are triggers. They are triggers for the green card process that we’ve described, or are laying out in our proposals. That’s the incentive to make sure they happen.

In essence, for those who are undocumented in this country, not only will they have to wait 10 years, more than 10 years, but they will have to wait until all three of those things are fully implemented. If they are not fully implemented there will be no green cards awarded and we think that will be an incentive.

We’re also going to have a legal immigration system that works. Part of our immigration problem is that we don’t have a legal way for people to come here, for example, to work temporarily on a farm. We’re going to have that now and so people aren’t going to have to come illegally. It’s going to be cheaper and easier to come legally. And so I think all of these things working together, none of them by themselves will do to the trick, but all of them working together will ensure we never have this problem again.