Rubio: Attacks on My Immigration Stance ‘Are Exaggerated’

STEPHANOPOULOS: "You’re getting hit pretty hard by Ted Cruz on the issue of immigration, taking on your support of that bipartisan Gang of Eight compromise in the Senate. And this week, a new issue cropped up, an article in “The Daily Beast”. And here’s the headline. It says “Marco Rubio in 2004: Cheap College for Undocumented Immigrants.” They’re talking about in the Florida statehouse, you co-sponsored legislation to provide in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants. What was your thinking then? And do you — do you stand behind that position now?"
RUBIO: "Well, first of all, a lot of these attacks are exaggerated. I don’t support amnesty. I think there has to be real consequences for violating our laws. I continue to support, and have supported and sponsored, the largest border surge in American history, 20,000 new border agents, 700 miles of fencing and walls, a mandatory e-verify system, entry/exit tracking system to prevent visa overstays. On the bill you talked about, it was a very narrowly drafted bill. You had to have a certain GPA, you had to live in the U.S. a long time, you had to graduate from a Florida high school. It was very narrowly tailored to high performing students who found themselves in a situation where they were brought here by their parents when they were five, didn’t even speak another language except English, and therefore couldn’t attend college because they were being charged like they were from out of state. They still had to pay for college, but they paid for what people paid when they lived in Florida."
STEPHANOPOULOS: "So you stand behind that —"
RUBIO: "They had to be high school graduates of Florida. Yes, of a narrowly tailored bill like that, absolutely. In fact, the Florida legislature came back years later, after I had left the legislature, and passed it with a vast majority of Republicans voting for it and a Republican governor. Find it. That’s different — we didn’t legalize anybody. That’s the issue here. And the truth is, when it comes to Ted, he has changed his position on immigration all over the place. I mean, he used to be against birthright citizens — or he used to be for birthright citizenship; now he says he’s against it. He used to for legalizing people that were here illegally. Now he says he’s against it. He used to be for a 200 percent increases in green cards, doubling them; now he says he wants none. And he said he used to be for a 500 percent increase in guest workers. And now he says he wants zero. So this is not consistency; this is calculation as he’s changed his position on these issues as we get closer to election day."