I have heard speculation that Romney will pick Rubio for VP to turn his polls around with Hispanics. Of course Romney's polling looks that way because he flipped to anti-Amnesty to beat Perry and Newt in the primary.
From the ‘legal’ immigrants I have met here in Maryland who got free college and got here on a family visa, I see no evidence that they will oppose big government liberalism. In fact the opposite.
I did see it says Rubio's idea doesn't offer a path to citizenship and that the Democrats are opposed to it. Now it might be a smart thing to do to propose ‘compassionate’ looking immigration reforms and let the Hispanics watch Democrats kill them. In real life it could be amended to include path to citizenship before a vote and backfire.
And as I recall the amnesty GWB RINOs here used to say that we have "Shamnesty" now and any bill passed would be better than that.
The new way to get amnesty around the unemployment rate is to focus on illegals going to college.
I do like the idea of putting 'compassionate' looking bills up that Dems kill then going full court press on how Dems hurt minorities, but only Dems know how to play this game. Republicans are not smart enough to pull that off it seems.
In real life it could be amended to include path to citizenship before a vote and backfire.
I think Dems would kill a Rubio-style dream act (no voting rights, assuming Pelosi/Reid didn't swindle the GOP), but suppose they passed it. Then:
1) They would claim that a small number of illegals would qualify, but squishy language in the law could multiply the numbers who qualified, especially with the help of rogue judges.
(NOTE for following comment: It refers to POLITICAL "XXXX-Studies" programs. I have great respect for Hispanic literature, music, philosophy, etc. I have read Borges, Unamuno, Marti, etc. in Spanish.) They could create bogus political college programs for "Reconquista Studies," "Dream Act Studies," etc. even worse than the ones we have now.
And of course even current family-based immigration policy would make the number legalized grow exponentially.
2) I believe such a "Dream Act" would become a laboratory for leftists and RINOs to develop tactics to promote general amnesty, while trying to add voting to that "Dream Act" by hook or crook.
The GOP is NOT going to win elections by out-pandering the Dems. If GWB had "seen us at the signing" as he promised, McCain might get an extra 1 or 2 percent of Cal. Hispanics, but he would still lose that state big time. The Left would have methodically and inevitably used amnesty to build unbeatable national majorities, and there would be no legal remedy after that.
Maybe Rubio should emulate Obama by promising amnesty in the first year and then not do it.