Sen. Marco Rubio pushed back against fellow Republican candidates who use the term “anchor babies,” including former Florida governor Jeb Bush and billionaire Donald Trump.
In an interview with CNBC’s John Harwood, Rubio insisted that these children were human beings.
“Those are human beings and ultimately they are people, we’re not just statistics, they’re humans with stories,” he said, when asked by Harwood what he thought about Donald Trump’s plan to block citizenship for babies who were born to illegal immigrants in the United States.
After Harwood suggested that Rubio would not be a U.S. citizen under Trump’s proposal, Rubio clarified that his parents were legal residents of the United States when he was born.
Rubio added that he wasn’t in favor of repealing the 14th Amendment, but admitted that it was a problem that so many people were coming illegally in the United States to have their babies earn birthright citizenship.
Recently, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has attacked Bush and Trump for using the term “anchor babies” assuring that it was derogatory.
“Do you have a better term?” Bush asked a reporter that pressed him on his use of the phrase today. “You give me a better term and I’ll use it.”
In the interview, Rubio also appeared confident that Trump’s positions on immigration wasn’t the views of the majority of Republicans.
“Aren’t you thinking that right now the Republican party is dropping a giant homemade bomb on itself and it’s chances in 2016?” Harwood asked.
“This not the Republican party,” Rubio replied. “These are individual candidates who are responsible for their own rhetoric and what they say. The face of the Republican party is going to be our nominee.”