In his engaging new autobiography
“An American Son: A Memoir,” Sen. Marco Rubio explores the “disconnect” between the Hispanic community and the Republican Party.
And in an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, he dismisses the idea that Hispanics are in favor of illegal immigration, and concedes that some Republicans overlook the “human aspect” of the issue.
Sen. Rubio can relate to the issue on a personal level — his parents left Cuba in 1956 to seek a better life in America.
Editor’s Note: Get Marco Rubio’s New Book for ONLY $4.95! That’s $22 Off!
“Any time you come here from somewhere else, especially if you’re one or two generations removed from that, you have a real sense of the desire for economic empowerment, which the free enterprise system gives us which other forms of economics don’t,” he told Newsmax chief Washington correspondent Ronald Kessler.
See the exclusive excerpt from Marco Rubio's interview with Newsmax:
“The gateway issue of course is immigration. You often hear a lot of discussion about the immigration issue. A lot of this is tone. The notion that Hispanics are in favor of illegal immigration is not true. They live in communities that are negatively impacted by runaway illegal immigration.
“But I also think they understand that illegal immigrants aren’t just a statistic, they’re real people, and they know the stories of these real people. They live among these people and they feel pain for these people even though they understand that what these people are doing violates the law.
“So it’s a difficult thing to balance. How do you balance between the fact that we have to have immigration laws and they have to be followed, and the fact that these are real human beings, most of whom have come here in search of a better life for their children and their families?
“The Hispanic community struggles with those two things. And I think when they hear politicians, and some of them are in the Republican Party, be shrill about that and only focus on the law and order aspect of it and not the human aspect of it, sometimes it catches people a little bit aback and maybe even causes them to tune out the rest of your message.
“So I think you can be for legal immigration to work and understand that the people who are here illegally, many of them are here for reasons of leaving their family better off. It doesn’t excuse what they did but it helps you understand it.
“And I think if the Republican Party, if it does a better job of talking about those issues, will have a real opportunity to make the economic case to the Hispanic community that the American free enterprise system is the only economic system in the history of the world where anyone from anywhere can accomplish anything.”
Editor’s Note: Get Marco Rubio’s New Book for ONLY $4.95! That’s $22 Off!
Rubio to Newsmax on New Book: I Can Make A Difference — the full interview
Rubio to Newsmax: My Faith Shapes Everything I Do
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.