Marco Rubio has a daunting task laid out for him in the coming months; trying to change the Republican Party's mind about immigration reform.
The Senator from Florida is a member of the Group of Eight that drafted up the immigration bill that heads to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday and as a rising star in the GOP he will be essential in rallying his party behind the bill when it comes up for a vote.
At a recent fundraiser in his home state, Rubio came face to face with the opposition he will face within his own party as a group of Republicans picketed the fundraiser, according to the Los Angeles Times.
"I want him to back off," Cheryl Griffin, one of the protestors, told the Los Angeles Times. "It's going to kill our party."
Others within the party may not agree with everything within the immigration bill, but they respect what Rubio is trying to do. Many within the party feel that Rubio, a Cuban-American born in Miami, is the perfect candidate to soften the party's often harsh stance on immigration reform and to court more support for the GOP from the Latino community.
"Marco has worked very, very hard to tackle the very difficult problem of how to fix our broken immigration system," Sen. Ted Cruz said. "I think he has worked in good faith in a sincere desire to craft a solution as to how to approach immigration."
The main sticking point for conservatives is that the immigration bill will provide a path for the 11 million immigrants currently within the country illegally to eventually obtain citizenship. Rubio will have to walk a tight rope to gain the support of a party that has often touted deportation and bigger fences as the solution to illegal immigration. To do this Rubio has focused on aspects of the bill that will appeal to that faction.
"No one can tell me the first country that landed a man on the moon cannot secure the border of the United States with Mexico," Rubio said.
While trying to gain support among his base Rubio has been very careful to not mention the word "citizenship," according to the Los Angeles Times. Instead he focuses on the Federal benefits that will not be available to immigrants remaining within the country.
"They won't qualify for Obamacare. They won't qualify for food stamps," Rubio said. "They won't qualify for welfare. The only thing they'll qualify for is to work and pay taxes."
Rubio will not only be facing opposition among potential voters but also from other Senators within his party. Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a member of the Judiciary Committee, has been straight forward in saying that he will do what he can to make sure the bill never becomes law. According to The New York Times Sessions has vowed to do everything he can to slow down progress of the bill by offering amendments that "confront the fundamentals of the bill."
"The longer this legislation is available for public review, the worse it's going to be perceived," Sessions said. "The longer it lays out there, the worse it's going to smell. The tide is going to turn."
If the bill is ever going to have any sort of bi-partisan support Rubio is going to have to work diligently within his party for that support. These views were echoed by the GOP chairman of Florida's St. Lucie County, Bill Patterson, when he spoke with the Los Angeles Times.
"I believe that something needs to be done on immigration," Patterson said. "and we have the best possible person doing the negotiating."
