Watch Marco Rubio's Full Speech on Immigration at Naleo

[Marco Rubio] Thank you. Thank you Senator Martínez y muchas gracias esta oportunidad de estar con ustedes el dia de hoy. Se los agradezco. Muchas gracias al Senador por vender el libro. Thank you for - Senator Martínez for showing my book, which is available at Amazon for 16.99. Thank you: I appreciate that very much Quiero dar unas palabras en español brevemente, antes de empezar el discurso, por darles las gracias, primero, por venir a la Florida y tener su conferencia aqui de NALEO. Hace cinco años que NALEO vino acá al centro de la Florida, yo creo que en este mismo sitio. Y nos unimos para hablar los temas en aquel entonces. En pocos momentos voy a hablar también sobre dónde estamos hoy. Y me sorprende, pero desafortunadamente nos encontramos que la mayoría de los temas que eran temas en aquél entonces siguen siendo temas el día de hoy, que ninguno de los temas que estaban - que existían en esa conferencia se han resuelto al nivel federal. Y vamos a discutir eso en unos momentos, pero quería reconocerlos a todos ustedes y darles las gracias por escoger la Florida para esta conferencia. [Applause] I apologize to those who don't speak Spanish. I was just telling them how I saved a bunch of money on my car insurance. [laughter] Thank you. So, I wanted to talk to you today, and I thought, well what - one of the things that frustrates me sometimes is that when people speak to Hispanics and Latinos, they only want to talk about immigration. And the point that I make is that immigration is a very important issue in the Hispanic community, but the vast majority of us do not wake up in the morning and think about immigration all day. We think - we wake up in the morning and have the same worries, the same hopes and the same fears as everybody else in this country. We worry about making payroll on Friday. We worry about balancing our family's budget at the end of the month. We worry about the schools that our kids go to. We worry about whether tomorrow will be better for them than it's been for us. And that's what I wanted to concentrate on here today when I came to speak to you. But I won't necessarily limit myself to that, because I think that both my head and my heart tell me that today, perhaps we are as close as we've ever been to a critical turning point in the debate about immigration. And so, I've abandoned my hopes of only talking about the economy and jobs, as important as that may be, for one moment, for one day, in hopes of speaking frankly to you about the issue of immigration, what I've learned in my year and half in the Senate and what I hope can happen moving forward. The first thing I learned when I got to the Senate is, no one wanted to talk to me about it. There were too many scars, too much pain. Too many people had been beat up by what had happened 4 or 5 years before. I'd try to raise the issue and people would say: "Look, I just don't want to go there again. I tried that 5 years ago, I tried that 3 years ago, and all I got was grief." That's the impression I got when I walked into the Senate and I want you to know, it wasn't just Republicans. It was Senators who had been burned by the way this issue was discussed and approached and just really didn't want to talk about it anymore. That's what I first learned. The second thing I've come to realize is how truly complicated this issue has become. This is not a simple issue. Immigra- we - both sides like to talk about this issue like it's an easy yes-or-no answer. It's much more complicated than that. And those of us involved in the debate need to start to recognize that openly, that both sides of it raise valid points. The people who are against illegal immigration and make that the core of their argument view it only as a law and order issue. But we know it's much more than that. Yes, it is a law and order issue, but it's also a human issue. These are real people, these are human beings who have children and hopes and dreams. These are people that are doing what virtually any of us would do if our children were hungry, if their countries were dangerous, if they had no hope for their future. [applause] And too often, in our conversation about immigration, that perspective is lost. Who among us would not do whatever it took to feed our children and to provide for them a better future? And yet the other side of the debate is equally guilty of oversimplifying it. Illegal immigration is a real problem. It is not an illegitimate problem: it is real. It has consequences. One of the great untold stories in America today is that no community understands that better than ours. It is Latinos, it is Hispanics who see the impact of illegal immigration up close and personal. Well, the human element of it, but also its costs and the burdens that it places on our society, in places where it is uncontrolled. We also need to begin to recognize that we are an extremely generous country. A million people a year immigrate to the United States legally. There isn't any country in the world that comes close to that. We need to recognize that there are probably 50 million people, including many in Latin America, maybe your family members, who are waiting to come here legally. Every single day in my offices here and in the Senate, I have people come in and say: "My Mom has been waiting, my sister has been waiting for 15 years. They paid the fees, they waited their turn." What's our message to them? Come illegally, it's cheaper and quicker? That's not an answer either. Last but not least, there's this notion that sometimes I feel like people are demanding their rights. The truth is, there is no right to illegally immigrate to the United States. And when we talk about illegal immigration, it's not about demanding rights. It's about appealing to the compassion of the most compassionate nation in the history of the world. Why is this issue simplified? I'll tell you right now: because it is powerful politics. It is a powerful political issue. I have seen people use it to raise money. I have seen people take the legitimate concerns about illegal immigration and turn it into panic, and turn that panic into fear and anger, and turn that anger into votes and money. I've also seen people go in the other direction: anyone who disagrees with their ideas on illegal immigration is anti-immigrant and anti-Hispanic. That's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Everything is about politics: I've seen it first-hand. Three months ago, I came up, I started to work with some of my colleagues on a concept: how can we accomodate children that are in this country, through no fault of their own, undocumented? And how can we do it in a way that unites us and not divides us? How can we do it in a way that honors our legacy as a nation of immigrants, but also as a nation of laws? And I proposed some specific ideas and I publicly talked about it. The reaction from many on the left was an immediate dismissal. I saw people say on the left that I was proposing a new three fiftths compromise, hearkening back to the days when a slave was only three fiftths of a person. I was accused of supporting apartheid. I was accused of supporting "a DREAM Act without a dream." Of course, a few months later, the President takes a similar idea and implements it through executive fashion, and now it's the greatest idea in the world. I don't care who gets the credit. I don't. But it exposed the fact that this issue is all about politics for some people. Not just Democrats, Republicans too. The proof is, after actions last week, all the questions were about what a brilliant tactical move it is - not from you, but from the people who cover politics. All they want to talk about is "Well, what does this mean for the election?" "What does this mean politically?" "Wasn't it a brilliant political tactic?" I guess that if this is what this issue is about to you, then maybe it was. But I wasn't looking for a talking point. I wasn't looking to influence the election in November. I was looking to help these kids that I've met. These aren't kids I've read about in the newspaper, these are people that I have met, who came here when they were 5, who didn't even know they were undocumented until they've applied to go to college, who are the valedictorians of their school, who want to be molecular biologists, who got accepted to an Ivy League school. And we're going to deport them, in a country that need more molecular biologists. That's what it was about for me, that's still what it's about for me. And only if it's about that will it ever get solved. As long as this issue of immigration is a political ping pong that each side uses to win elections and influence votes, I'm telling you: it won't get solved. Because there are too many people that have concluded that this issue, unresolved, is more powerful. They want it to stay unresolved. It's easier to influence elections. It's easier to use to raise money. The only way to solve this is a balanced approach that recognizes that this is complicated. And I think the way you have to do it is you have to approach it, number one, by understanding that we have to win the confidence of the American people back. The confidence that we're serious about discouraging illegal immigration in the future. And that's why enforcement processes are important as part of any reform. But I also think we have to reform our legal immigration system. I tell people all the time: the single greatest contributor to illegal immigration is a burdensome, bureaucratic and complicated legal immigration process. There are millions of people in this country that would go back home if they thought they could come back next year again to work in their seasonal jobs. And I know of no one that wouldn't rather immigrate legally, if they could, if they could afford it. There are some people who are out of status through no fault of their own. Someone told them they were an immigration lawyer and they gave the guy a $5'000 check and the guy vanished. And now they are undocumented. It's complicated. If we are able to reform and modernize our legal immigration system, if we can win the confidence of the American people back, we’ll get after the issue of millions of people that are still undocumented. And the great answer - the great question then is: well, what do we do about them? And I've talked about what we should do about the kids. What about everybody else? Here's the truth, if we're honest with ourselves: we don't know yet, because it's not easy. I know we're not going to deport, round up and deport 12 million people. I know we're not going to grant amnesty to 12 million people. And somewhere between those two ideas, is the solution that will never be easy, but I promise you it'll get easier to find if we have a legal immigration system that works and the confidence of the American people that we're serious about enforcing our laws. Now some may say, that's too much to ask, this balanced approach. Well it is, if it continues to be politicized. I was tempted to come here today and rip open the policies of the administration. I know in a few moments, we'll hear from the President. I was tempted to come here and tell you: "Hey, he hasn't been here in three years. What a coincidence: this is an election year." I was tempted to tell you: "Didn't he - why didn't he make this issue a priority?" [applause]. I was - well, I guess I just did tell you. [applause] But that's not the direction I want, because - because if I did, if that's what I came here to talk to you about, then I would be doing the exact same thing that I just criticized: the exact same thing that I just criticized. So, is it possible for us to reach that point? Let me close by telling you why I think we should and we must. I really rely on a story I recently heard of. I didn't know the story before: I recently learned of it. It's the story of an elderly man who came to the US legally and then decided to go back to his country because he was a little discouraged by the way things were here and he decided to go back to his country again. And then, after a few years there, things weren't going well and he decided to come back. Now I don't know this for sure, but when he came back to the United States, I think he thought that since he had come in legally once before, he was still able to re-enter. But he was wrong. I think he just didn't realize - I don't know this for sure - but I think he didn't realize that if you live here for a year, your immigrant visa expires and you have to renew it. He was an elderly man, and he was disabled, didn't speak any English. And he gets to the United States, and immediately, he is detained and questioned. And he is told he has to appear in court, where he is ordered deported. I just think: now you are elderly, disabled, don't speak the language, confronting American jurisprudence? He must have been panicked. But somehow along the way, because of the conditions in this country, and all kinds of other factors at the time, the US said: "You know, you don't have a legal right to be here, but we're going to let you stay, because your case, your story, tugs at our heart and at our legacy as a nation of immigrants. This story matters a lot to me, because years later, that man was so grateful to this country that he would spend hours with his grandson talking, talking about how great America was, what a special country it was. And today his grandson serves in the US Senate and stands before you here today, [applause] knowing [applause] knowing that we have in the past been a nation that's been able to balance our laws and our compassion, our desire to live in a nation of laws but also to have a nation of immigrants. And so I close by asking you: how did we ever get to this point? How can immigration be a controversial and divisive issue in a nation of immigrants? How can a country built by people that came from everywhere else be so divided about who gets to come here now? And maybe the best way to begin to confront this is to remind ourselves of who we are, and how tightly-wound it is iinto the essence of our greatness. The Statue of Liberty is often seen as a symbol of immigration. That's not why it was built. The Statue of Liberty was not built as a symbol of immigration. It was built as an ode to the Republican - Republicanism, not Republican party, although some people claim - but, I'm kidding. But the reason why it became a symbol of immigration is because immigrants from Europe, when they were coming to Ellis Island, they would sail right past it. And the first thing they would see about America was that statue. And in the turn of the last century, there was a poem that was written and inscribed onto a plaque there, that I think reminds us of law, of what makes us different, and of who we must remain. And when I read those words, I'm reminded of the journey my own parents took, of people who were desperate to provide their children a life better than theirs, of making sure that every opportunity they did not have would live in the lives of their children and grandchildren. This sentiment exists among people all over the world. But only here in that country, has that dream become reality time and time again. And so, let us remind ourselves once again of the words of that poem, which call to us and say - and to answer the simple question of what do we love more? Do we love our parties more than our country? Do we care about the next election more than we do about the future? Are we still that beacon of hope to the world? Are we still the country our parents found when they came here, or will our children inherit a different one, one more like the rest of the world? Are we still the nation that believed in these words: "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shores. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost, send these to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" Thank you. [applause]