Sen. Marco Rubio chided the White House in an interview airing Monday for not giving him a heads up on its plan to change the way deportation law is enforced.
Rubio’s plan for a GOP-friendly DREAM Act is dead for the time being, a victim — he says — of President Obama’s move to put DREAM-like policy into place by executive action. Rubio’s unfinished plan achieved near-mythical status among Republicans, who hoped it would forge a middle path between anti-immigration hardliners in the GOP and those holding out hope the party could make a play for a chunk of the Hispanic vote.
And though Rubio has not criticized the substance of the White House plan outright, he is angry that no one sought out his opinion before the measure was announced.
“The White House never called us about this. No one reached out to us and told us this was on its way,” Rubio told ABC News in an interview set to air Monday night. “And, I mean, if they were serious about a real solution to this problem and not politicizing it, then why don’t you reach out to people?”
Rubio earlier attacked the White House for not allowing him be the chief negotiator for the GOP on immigration. As Rubio worked on putting together a bill, immigration-focused conservative Republicans like Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach were pre-emptively condemning the plan, vowing not to support it. The bill didn’t seem to have great prospects in the House, either. Rubio accused the Obama administration of actively trying to kill the plan, a charge the White House adamantly denied.
“The notion that somehow the president or Democrats would be the roadblock to any progress on immigration is ridiculous,” a White House official told TPM in April. “If this proposal fails, the reason will be the Republicans.”
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