VIDEO: Marco Rubio Suggests Giving DACA Illegal Aliens Temporary Amnesty That Leads to 'Permanent' Amnesty

The former co-architect of the infamous 2013 “Gang of Eight” amnesty bill, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), suggested that he is open to a temporary amnesty for nearly 800,000 illegal aliens that would eventually lead to a “permanent” amnesty.

In an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, Rubio sent mixed messages on the issue of the President Obama-created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program where hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens have been shielded from deportation.

Since Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that DACA would end in March 2018, the Republican establishment and Democrats have scrambled together to push a deal where illegal aliens enrolled in the program can permanently remain in the United States.

Rubio, like his Republican establishment colleagues, was unclear on the issue, saying that while he supports an amnesty, he does not support the DREAM Act, which is the most expansive amnesty legislation currently filed in the GOP-led Congress.

“Here’s what I’ve said: There’s a difference between DACA and the DREAM Act,” Rubio said. “If what they want to do, and the President’s expressed an openness to this, is to do something like DACA, but constitutionally, that’s temporary and acts as a bridge towards something more permanent, that’s one thing. What they want is to make a permanent change to immigration policy that must be accompanied by permanent changes to security.”

While admitting that he could get behind an amnesty for illegal aliens, Rubio also claimed that he has long opposed extended-family chain migration, which allows newly naturalized U.S. citizens to bring their foreign relatives to the U.S. as well, and supported E-Verify, which prevents businesses from hiring illegal aliens.

These legal immigration-cutting measures are components of Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Sen. David Perdue’s (R-GA) popular RAISE Act legislation, endorsed by President Trump, that would give relief and raise wages for American workers.

“We’ve said it should be limited to immediate families,” Rubio said. “We’ve always said it should be a merit-based system of immigration. We’ve always said we need border security, including a wall, an Entry-Exit tracking system, E-Verify. These are all things we’ve long supported. The debate is, do you link it, the Democrats don’t want to, do you link it to anything else on immigration.”

Rubio’s former “Gang of Eight” friends, like the pro-open borders Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), have not given up hope for an amnesty similar to that of their failed 2013 efforts, which sought to legalize 12 to 30 million illegal aliens.

Flake has opposed the RAISE Act, previously saying that “there must always” be low-skilled immigration pouring into the U.S., Breitbart News reported.

Yet, despite Rubio’s alleged support for the RAISE Act, he headed up a fundraiser for the pro-immigration Flake in October, just before Flake announced his retirement, Breitbart News reported.