Ruben Navarrette Jr. has tired of trolling the immigration issue from the right in the guise of supporting comprehensive reform:
Given his retreat [on comprehensive immigration reform], [Sen. Marco] Rubio [R-FL] may have actually diminished the GOP brand among Latinos. He sent the message that, despite their lip service about immigration reform, Republicans won’t stand up to right-wing nativists. He is lost, and so is the party.
Rubio was once front-page news, and now he is yesterday’s news. No one cares what he thinks about the immigration issue, because they know that – given time – it’ll change.
Here’s some Navarrette from 2009:
In the past, I’ve advised undocumented immigrants from Mexico to learn English, become legal, value education, refuse handouts, resist entitlement, and culturally assimilate. Now, given a disturbing trend tied to the wobbly U.S. economy — one that turns the immigration equation upside down — I have one more piece of advice: Consider going home.
Let me explain. It’s not because they shouldn’t be here in the first place. That’s a given…
…I would never be so naive as to make the argument that illegal immigrants should self-deport for moral reasons, any more than I would suggest employers turn themselves in to get right with the law.
Yet, given recent events, I am willing to contemplate a completely different argument: that illegal immigrants should self-deport because of family reasons or, more precisely, because of family responsibility. They should leave not to please Americans but to alleviate some of the pressure that has come to weigh on relatives back home.
This was written long before Mitt Romney said the Republicans’ policy should be to make life so miserable for undocumented workers the people who mow his lawn, that they would leave the country voluntarily.
Yet, apparently, even so-called moderate Marco Rubio is too much of a troglodyte for Navarrette Jr.
Hi-larioius.
