U.S. Senator Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) office will host in-person and virtual Mobile Office Hours next week to assist constituents with federal casework issues in their respective local communities. These office hours offer constituents who do not live close to one of...
Every year, the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) recognizes Members of Congress for their non-legislative achievements in operations, communications, and constituent services. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) was awarded the 2024 Democracy Award for...
El senador estadounidense Marco Rubio (R-FL) emitió el siguiente comunicado sobre la toma de posesión del presidente panameño José Mulino: “A principios de este año, tras un proceso electoral pacífico y democrático, el pueblo de Panamá eligió al Presidente José...
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Each year, the U.S. Department of State releases to Congress its International Religious Freedom Report. This report highlights the status of religious freedom in countries worldwide. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) issued the following statement regarding the release...
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) office will host in-person and virtual Mobile Office Hours next week to assist constituents with federal casework issues in their respective local communities. These office hours offer constituents who do not live close to one of...
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined Fox and Friends to discuss the escalation of illegal immigration, lack of transparency during border negotiations, and the military recruitment crisis. See below for highlights and watch the full interview on YouTube and Rumble.
On the immigration “deal” being drawn up behind closed doors:
“Until the [legislative language] is released, you’re operating on innuendo and rumor and so forth. I want to be fair, because I think the things James Lankford wants to see, what he prefers to see, are good things for America. The fundamental problem I have is that at this moment, the reason why we have a border crisis is because we have a president that won’t enforce the immigration laws.
“Our border laws and our immigration laws have not changed. They are the same today as they were under Trump. The only difference is that Trump enforced the laws. In addition, he put in place things like Remain in Mexico; if you’re in a third country that’s safe, you have to stay there, and you have to apply from there; and not releasing single adults that are crossing the border. Biden, on day one, repealed all of that. That’s what kicked off the border crisis.
“My fundamental view is that if the president that we have now won’t even enforce those things, if he won’t even enforce current immigration law, how can anybody pretend that he’s going to actually enforce even stricter ones? He just went to the Supreme Court to fight against border security, to keep Texas from protecting itself. This is the guy we think is going to take whatever authority he has and use it to protect the country? This is not a matter of authorization. He has the authority right now to secure our border. He doesn’t have the willingness to do it.
“He’s not going to get into another fight with his base over it. What he wants is for there to be some deal that he can point to and say, ‘There was a bipartisan deal, even some Republicans were on board, but the crazy Republicans in the House killed it,’ and therefore blame them for the border. That’s what he wants. He can seal the border right now. He can help reinstate Remain in Mexico, reinstate safe third country, and stop releasing single adults that are crossing the border, [but he won’t do it].”
On how the immigration issue has changed over time:
“It was 400,000 people a year [crossing the border in 2013]. That’s almost how many we had in the month of December. It’s a completely different situation, in terms of the crisis that we now face.
“The second big change is that everybody’s okay with things until it becomes their problem. When this was not your problem, and you were thousands of miles away from the border, and it wasn’t your state and your city that was being overrun, it was easy to sit in New York and Chicago, in the northeast, wherever, and say: ‘We have to be compassionate. We have to let anybody who wants to come in very easily.’ When they’re closing your schools, because you need to house people, now it’s a different situation. Right now, they’re dealing with the reality of it.
“The bottom line is this – and this is happening in Europe, this is happening all over the world – there’s no nation in the history of the world that has been open to or willing or happy about having millions of people pour into your country. You don’t even know who they are, [and they’re coming] in mass. No country in the world would tolerate it. No country in the world thinks it’s a good idea – except, apparently, here, now, under this president.”
On his military recruitment crisis op-ed:
“We missed our targets big time last year on recruitment because of a combination of three things. One, kids have been taught that the U.S. military, in the past, has not been a good thing, that it’s actually done harm. The second is, imagine you’re a young person today, and every day, all you’re hearing about is, veterans are committing suicide, veterans are homeless, veterans are suffering from mental illness, veterans who are harmed in the service of our country now have to fight to get care from the VA. The third thing is, we’ve turned the military into a social experiment. Watch some of these social media posts under Biden’s Pentagon, and it’s all about gender and sexual orientation. What they should be focused on is protecting our country from enemies that want to harm us.
“You combine these three things, and unfortunately, many of the families and parents who once viewed military service as an honorable, good,and worthwhile thing are now looking at it and saying, ‘Why do I want [my kids] to serve in that?’ And [the kids are thinking], ‘Why do I want to be a veteran one day, if my own government’s going to mistreat me, and my own society may ignore me?’ All those things combined really harm our ability to recruit people, to serve us at a time in which we’re facing growing threats all over the world.”
On how to improve military recruitment:
“How are you going to encourage people to join something that, ultimately, for a lot of people, turns out to be bad? We have to fix that. We have to treat our veterans better, because it’s impacting recruitment. But we also have to help people understand that there are skills that you can acquire in the military that are applicable in the real world. And we need to make it easier for them to do that once they leave service.”