Florida Senator and Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio said that he’s “not in favor of repealing the 14th Amendment” because birthright citizenship is one of the things that makes America exceptional, but that people coming to the US to have children is “a legitimate issue” in an interview with CNBC’s John Harwood released on Thursday.
Rubio began by saying that illegal immigrants are “human beings,” and “not just statistics,” but “human beings with stories.”
Rubio was then asked about the debate over immigration in the GOP and whether the GOP was hurting its 2016 chances. Rubio stated that individual candidates don’t speak for the whole party, and individual candidates are “responsible for their own rhetoric and what they say.” He added, “the face of the Republican Party’s going to be our nominee.”
The discussion then turned to birthright citizenship. Rubio was asked, “Is not birthright citizenship one of the things that makes America exceptional?” He answered, “Yes, and that’s why I’m not in favor of repealing the 14th Amendment. But what’s the flipside of that argument? There’s a legitimate issue embedded within this debate, and that is, you have people coming to this country expressly for the purpose of having children.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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