Later this week, the Senate will vote on a comprehensive immigration bill, and no D.C. lawmaker has been more in the center of the issue than Florida's own Marco Rubio. This has prompted members of Rubio's Tea Party base in the Tampa Bay area to warn him that he risks losing their support if he votes on the bill. The bill would allow a path to citizenship (after 13 years) for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S.
Dozens of Tea Party activists gathered at high noon at Rubio's district office in Tampa near USF today to ask Rubio not to support the bill. Their appearance came a couple of hours after a similar number of activists urged the GOP Senator to back the legislation.
"Nobody that I've talked with on either side of the immigration discussion is pleased with everything in this bill," admitted the Reverend Russell Meyer, executive director of the Florida Council of Churches, at the pro-immigration rally. "And that's the only way immigration seems to go forward, is to have something that brings all of the questions in a way that people can say 'I got enough of what I need so that you can have what you need.' And we need to move forward."
But Tampa 9.12 co-founder Sharon Calvert warned Rubio that "trust is earned, and when it's lost, it can be very hard to win back."
This article appears in Jun 27 – Jul 3, 2013.