Will Immigration Reform Kill Rubio's Presidential Chances?

Passing major legislation is not a path to the presidency. So why is Sen. Marco Rubio, who is almost surely running for the 2016 Republican nomination, working so hard on comprehensive immigration reform?

Look at the only lawmaker who has become president in the last half-century. Barack Obama did almost nothing in his brief time in the Senate. His career in the world's greatest deliberative body consisted mainly of showing up, becoming immediately dissatisfied and looking for something better.

Obama never took a leading role crafting any piece of momentous legislation. And some of the things he did do, like voting against raising the debt ceiling and voting to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee, came back to bite him when he moved into the White House. But mainly, Sen. Obama held to the same arm's length, disengaged philosophy that led him to vote "present" 129 times in the Illinois legislature.

On the other hand, look at the most recent senator who ran for president with a record of passing big legislation. John McCain led a crusade for campaign finance reform and tried hard, if unsuccessfully, to enact immigration reform in 2006 and 2007. That kind of work forces a lawmaker to take stands, which can lead to making enemies, which can lead to trouble in his own party. It doesn't lead to the White House.

So now Marco Rubio, a presidential hopeful, is all-in for immigration reform, with all the potential for disaster that entails. Why is he doing it?

Obviously, Rubio has a personal interest in the topic. The son of Cubans who came to the United States, his life was shaped by immigration. And he represents Florida, where 23 percent of residents are of Hispanic origin. So it's important to him, and to many of his constituents.

"Marco isn't doing this because of politics," says Rubio adviser Todd Harris. "If politics was all that mattered, it probably would have been easier to do nothing. He's doing it because our immigration system is broken." Citing problems with border security, visa security and 11 million immigrants here illegally, Harris adds, "There are a lot of reasons why he supports immigration reform, but none of them have anything to do with politics."

Without suggesting that any of that is untrue, it is nevertheless a fact that politicians consider the political effects of the things they do. So how might Rubio see the upsides and downsides of taking a leading role on a particularly hot-button issue?

"It's a big political risk in Republican primary land, but he will get a needed stature bump," says one veteran GOP operative who supports reform. "And doing the smart thing in the GOP primaries these days is almost always the wrong thing to do if you ever hope to be elected president, as President Romney can now tell you. So the politics are actually good in the longer game, which is the only game that can ever pay off."

That's useful advice, but only if immigration reform turns out to be the kind of issue that wins widespread approval. The problem is, recent polling has shown much public skepticism over the government's ability, or even inclination, to secure the border. And without that security, public approval of immigration reform goes down, down, down -- not just among Republicans, but among independents, too.

That means if Rubio sticks with the Gang of Eight, he might alienate millions of Americans who put security above any other immigration issue, and if he drops out, he might alienate everybody else.

In addition, as far as Republican primary voters are concerned, Rubio has taken a huge risk by hanging out with a bad crowd. McCain, fellow GOP Gang of Eight member Lindsey Graham (known to some critics as "Lindsey Grahamnesty") and Democrat Charles Schumer are not a popular bunch with the GOP base.

The bottom line is that if Rubio is playing a long game, as the GOP strategist suggests, he's running a significant risk of never making it through the Republican primaries. And if he's playing a shorter game, and insists on tough, GOP-pleasing measures, he risks blowing up the whole immigration project and looking like the villain.

And if he's playing no game at all -- if he is really doing it just because he believes it's the right thing to do -- there is still this: When it comes to running for president, voters don't much care about bills passed and votes taken. Barack Obama knew that instinctively. Will Rubio learn the same lesson from immigration reform?

“Marco Rubio was born in Florida in 1956 to parents who legally migrated from pre-Castro Cuba.”

Marco Rubio’s parents were Cuban citizens at the time when their son, Marco Rubio, was born in the United States. Marco Rubio’s parents had ample opportunities to apply for and obtain U.S. citizenship many years before marco Rubio’s birth, and they did not choose to obtain that U.S. citizenship. If Marco Rubio’s parents had chosen to renounce their Cuban citizenship and their natural born citizenship to a sovereign Cuba, irrespective of its lawful or unalwful regime, then Marco Rubio would have been a natural born citizen of the United States because his parents wwre U.S. Citizens at the time of Marco Rubio’s birth in the United States. Unfortunateely for Marco Rubio, his parents elected to retain their Cuban citizenship in the hopes of returning home to a non-Communist Cuba at some day in the future. Conseequently, Marco Rubio was a natural born Cuban Citizen die to his parents electing to remain citizens of Cuba and Cuba’s pre-Communist and Communist laws recognizing the right of foreign born children of Cuban citizen parents to claim their natural born Cuban citizenship.

The fact that the United States laws permit Marco Rubio to renounce his natural born Cuban citizenship in favor of retaining his native born U.S. citizenship option does nothing to change the fact his natural born allegiance was to the sovereign nation of Cuba, while his adoptive native born citizenship gave Marco Rubio the alternative option of renouncing his natural born allegiance to the his parents sovereign nation and choose instead to adopt an allegiance to the sovereign United States. A antural born citizen by contrast has no option to shoose citizenship and allegiancee to a sovereign nation different from the sovereign nation in which the parents are citizens. Like naturalized citizeenship, an adopted citizenship, whether or not it is due to the place of nativity, is inherently not natural born citizenship, because natural born citizenship is by definition the citizenship of a peerson’s parents and parent’s allegiance. In some nations and cultures, natural born citizenship is even more demanding in qualifications, because a person must also prove their ancestors back a certain number of generations weere also members citizens of that ethnic group and/or nation. Natural born citizenship is not about where the person was born. natural born citizenship is about to whom you were born and what ethnic and/or citizenship your parents were at your birth or at their birth.

“Bobby Jindal was born in Louisiana in 1971 to parents who legally migrated from India.”

The fact that Bobby Jindal’s foreign parents weere lawfully admitted to the United States as foreign students and/or workeers does nothing whatsoever to change the fact they were citizens of the foreign nation of India and owing alleegiance to the nation of India when Bobby Jindal was born in Louisian, and the United States with his parents natural born Indian citizenship and the option of adopting native born U.S. citizenship or not. becasue Bobby Jindal was born with a natural born citizen of India in addition to native born citizenship in the United States, his natural born citizenship in the foreign nation and foreign sovereignty of india precludes his possibly being a natural born citizen by any stretch of the imagination or pettifoggery. Bobby Jindal, like Marco Rubio, are disqualified by the Constitution’s natural born citizeen clause from serving in the Office of the presideent or Vice President.

“Neither ‘owes allegiance’ to the nation of their parent’s birth, Rubio in particular.”

That is an utterly false statement, and you should really know better than to go around making such false statements. The citizenship laws of India, Cuba, and international law are quite clear about the citizenship and allegiancee requiements of their Indian and Cuban parents. Bobby Jindal had a right to acknowlede and claim his Indian citizenship. The same is true of Marco Rubio, who could have claimed his natural born Cuban citizenship at any time up to a certain age. If they were actually true natural born U.S. citizens, they could not possibly have claimed the natural born citizenships of India and Cuba. Instead, they woud have been forced to become naturalized citizens of India or Cuba. Look it up, and you’ll see this is correct. A natural born U.S. citizen by definition does not have any foreign citizenship or allegiance to a foreign sovereign at birth or at anytime after birth.

I may have issues with both if they decide to run in 2016, based on their stances on certain issues, but this asinine natural born citizen stuff is just plain awful.

"...this asinine natural born citizen stuff is just plain awful."

You aren't alone Mquinn. Many low-information voters, a number active here on Free Republic, would also like to see provisions of the Constitution quietly disappear, including the 1at and 2nd Amendments. Many, probably including yourself, repeat the usual garbage that “because it wasn't defined in the Constitution...” That is garbage because the Constitution doesn't, for very good reasons, contain definitions.

Beyond that there are dozens of supreme court cases in which the common-law definition is repeated, five by Chief Justices. There is one case where only the principle is repeated because the definition was essential to the decision, Minor v. Happersett which decision was unanimous, and where the Chief Justice, Morrison Waite, nailed the definition which was then cited repeatedly, including in Wong Kim Ark and Perkins v. Elg, as precedence.

Rubio’s candidacy would protect the leadership of the Republican party, which knew full well that Obama, a natural born subject of the British Commonwealth, and a naturalized citizen by his own admission, was ineligible, but cooperated, either to help Obama, or because McCain too was ineligible, but powerful and senior in the plaid pants wing of the GOP, and felt he was owed the chance. It was the Obama campaign committee that tried to smooth the path with two Senate actions, a bill, S. 2678 (Obama/McCaskill) in Feb 2008 and a resolution, SR 511 in Apr 2008 (McCaskill/Leahy/Clinton/Obama) desperate measures to provide some legal cover for McCain so that no Republican dared to ask questions about natural born citizenship, even with 8 attempts between 2002 and 2007 to pass amendments to Article II Section 1.

I think you know why the GOP has floated one naturalized citizen after another, Jindal, Rubio, Cruz, when we have dozens of natural born citizens who would make excellent candidates, if our voting systems were not devoid of any method of verifying voter intent. Suzanna Martinez was born on our soil to US citizens, as was Allen West, and Ben Carson. Why, you won't ask, is that a requirement?

Minor v. Happersett, 88 US 162 (1875):

“The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.”

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