“I don’t know why anyone would want to have someone who is not going to enforce the law, as the chief law enforcement officer of the United States,” Christie said on Tuesday’s program of the The Laura Ingraham Show.
Christie landed another punch, saying “obviously, there’s lots of Democrats who would agree” with Rubio.
Christie drew a sharp contrast between himself and the Florida Senator, by declaring that under his presidency, Obama’s Oval Office amnesty would “be revoked the first day.”
“I’ve said very clearly that the President’s conduct is illegal… If those executive orders are illegal, which I believe they are, then they need to be revoked the first day you get in office.”
Although widely ignored by the media, Rubio has repeatedly said that, upon taking the oath of office, he would not “immediately revoke” Obama’s 2012 executive amnesty for young illegals. The executive amnesty, which was never approved by Congress, is called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.
The presidential oath states, in part, “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I… will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Ingraham asked Christie about a portion of a little-noticed English-language exchange between Marco Rubio and Jorge Ramos from earlier this year. Ramos’ interview with Rubio recently came back into national focus after Fusion posted the relevant exchange on its Youtube channel late last week.
In the soundbite that Ingraham played for Christie, Ramos asked, “Would a President Rubio revoke Deferred Action and executive action by President Barack Obama?”
In his own words, Rubio responded:
“We have two executive actions. The first was DACA which applies to young people that arrived in this country [at a] very young age before they were adults and I don’t think we can immediately revoke that. I think it will have to end at some point, and I hope it will end because of some reform to the immigration laws. It cannot be the permanent policy of the United States but I’m not calling for it to be revoked tomorrow or this week or right away.”
There are two key phrases in Rubio’s answer that demonstrate the Florida Senator has adopted the same position as President Obama.
First, Rubio says “I’m not calling for it to be revoked tomorrow or this week or right away,” which is an open declaration that, as President, he would continue to order his immigration officers to follow President Obama’s executive order rather than the laws passed by Congress.
Secondly, Rubio says “I hope it will end because of some reform to the immigration laws.” Obama has used the same formula. He lectured Congress: “if folks are serious about getting immigration reform done [they should be] passing a bill and getting it to my desk. And then the executive actions that I take go away.”
After listening to the exchange, Christie said, “It’s hard to keep up with how many times Marco changes his position on this thing, to tell you the truth.”
When Ingraham asked Christie if he thought Rubio’s comments were inherently disqualifying, Christie agreed and compared Rubio to open-borders Democrats:
“I don’t know why anyone would want to have someone who is not going to enforce the law, as the chief law enforcement officer of the United States. You have to enforce the law, and if you believe, as I do, now maybe Marco doesn’t believe that the executive order is illegal, and if he doesn’t he should say that. And, he’s welcome to that opinion, obviously there’s lots of Democrats who would agree with that.”
As Sen. Jeff Sessions has pointed out, the reason any executive-ordered amnesty is unconstitutional is because, “The President’s action erases the laws Congress has passed in order to implement laws Congress has refused to pass.”
Sessions notes that, “Congress considered and rejected these changes to immigration law in 2006, 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2014.”
The so-called ‘dream’ amnesty is a Congressionally-rejected rewrite of standing immigration law.
Rubio is saying will continue to carry on an immigration program that contravened those laws and which Congress has refused to adopt.
DACA, however, is not only a deportation immunity program, but affirmatively grants federal benefits and work permits to illegal immigrants, including work authorization, social security, medicare and free cash tax credits.
As VOX and MSNBC have observed, up to this point, Republican presidential candidates have almost entirely ignored Rubio’s record on immigration.
By contrast, Governor Romney— who developed only a state-level health care plan for Massachusetts with a population of 6.7 million— was tagged repeatedly and constantly on his state-level health care work and the suggestion was made repeatedly he could therefore not be the party’s standard-bearer. This argument was made even though Romney has promised to repeal and eliminate Obamacare, and made it a feature of his campaign.
Rubio authored the Obama-backed federal immigration plan in the Senate and made it the focal point of his entire career. Unlike Romney, who pledged to repeal Obama’s signature health care initiative, Rubio has said he will cement and continue Obama’s signature immigration policies. Rubio has indicated support for all of the following Obama-backed measures opposed by GOP voters: green cards and thus citizenship and welfare for illegal aliens, expanded refugee resettlement, massively increasing the number of H-1bs, increasing record immigration rates, and continuing to execute the President’s 2012 DREAMer amnesty.
Christie’s comments today suggest that Rubio’s record may come under more focus, especially following the endorsement of billionaire GOP meda-donor Paul Singer— a prime funder of the open borders group National Immigration Forum.
Another trouble spot for Rubio could be foreshadowed in recent comments from Senator Sessions. When asked in an interview with Politico‘s top immigration reporter, Seung Min Kim, whether Rubio’s immigration view had changed, Sessions replied: “I don’t think he’s [Rubio] ever backed off of the fundamentals of the [Gang of Eight] bill.”
In a joint op-ed, Senator Sessions and Dave Brat went a step further, slamming the Gang of Eight bill as “not immigration reform,” but “the dissolution of the nation state,” and Rubio’s I-squared bill as “a bill to triple the number of foreign tech workers brought in as lower-wage substitutes,” and declaring that any candidate who couldn’t commit to curbing immigration should drop out of the race:
“We need an immigration policy that shows compassion for American. Anyone running for the White House who cannot publicly commit to these principles should consider a different occupation. Americans should no longer have to wonder for whom their leaders work.”