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Rubio: “I just truly believe that as part of any successful immigration reform, you have to have assimilation. And one of the quickest ways for people to assimilate into our culture and our society is to speak the unifying language of our country which is English and this will expedite that.”

Excerpts from Interview on “The Mike Gallagher Show”
Senator Marco Rubio
June 11, 2013
http://youtu.be/ZAx9pOOFYRA

Mike Gallagher: “First, let’s talk about this immigration amendment that you are introducing today. This would eliminate, I guess there was a loophole that kind of undermined the bill’s new requirement that residential provisional immigrants have to achieve English language proficiency. Tell us about that, Senator.”

Senator Marco Rubio: “Well, actually we require that now of people who are applying for citizenship. This actually goes a step further and it says that people who are a part of this provisional status, the legalization of status, that they will have to know English when they apply for a green card. So, the way the bill reads was that they could either show they are proficient or show that they are enrolled in classes and trying to get proficient and we eliminate the second part, which is the enrolled in classes. So, we think ten years is more than enough time for people to get proficient in English and again, this is not necessarily designed to get punitive. I just truly believe that as part of any successful immigration reform, you have to have assimilation. And one of the quickest ways for people to assimilate into our culture and into our society is to speak the unifying language of our country which is English and this will expedite that, so I think for most of these people that is not going to be a problem. They are living among us now. They know English just by having to know it to be successful, but I think for others this will be a good requirement to have, and I think just furthers what I hope will be a part of this immigration reform, and that is further assimilation.”

Gallagher: “And assimilation is something that is so important, and I hear that every day from people who say there seems to be an unwillingness by a lot of immigrants to assimilate into our culture, into using our language and sort of our parameters, and I’m so glad this addresses this.”

…

Gallagher: “You also said Sunday, apparently in a Spanish language interview with Univision, that according to Byron York, you made the strongest statement yet that legalization of the illegals must happen before any border security or internal enforcement measure in place. Byron, characterizes it as, which is kind of interesting to me, that the legalization would be almost immediate but then he goes on to admit in his article that they would have to pass background checks and pay fines. That doesn’t sound like an immediate process to me.”

Rubio: “Yes, well first of all the question, the context of the question was about the border security, and what they were saying is ‘What do you with all of these people in the meantime while you’re trying to spend ten years securing the border?’”

Gallagher: “Right.”

Rubio: “And the answer was, well the first step in the process is the legalization process. Nothing is awarded to you, you can’t just show up and say, ‘I’m here, I’ve been here ten years, give me my legalization.’ You have to show up and you have to go through a process, and that process involves a national security background check, a criminal background check – which would disqualify you if you have committed crimes – we are going to tighten that up even more.”

Gallagher: “Right.”

Rubio: “You have to pay a fine. You have to start paying taxes. You have to be gainfully employed. And your legalization is not a permanent legalization; it has to be renewed every six years.”

Gallagher: “Right.”

Rubio: “Every time you go back to review it, you have got to go through the same process again – the background check, you’ve got to prove you’ve been gainfully employed and paying taxes, you’ve got to pay the fine, you’ve got to pay the fee. So, there are conditions on the legalization, they are just specific to the applicant. The second point I was making, and it was really a defense of the border security is, what we are saying is that before the green card process can begin, the permanent process, before people can become permanently legal, the border security stuff has to be completed. And my argument on Sunday and continues to be: why is that unreasonable? Why is it reasonable to ask for certainty when it comes to the permanent process, but not certainty when it comes to the border security?”