Marco Rubio files amendment to punish IRS agents who leak taxpayer docs

From a press release:

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) today filed an amendment to the 2013 Farm Bill that would punish Internal Revenue Service (IRS) officials who abuse their power by violating the First Amendment rights of the American people. The amendment is based on similar legislation, the “Taxpayer Nondiscrimination & Protection Act of 2013”, introduced by Rubio last week in the Senate and by Congressman Mike Turner (R-OH) in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The amendment provides for mandatory termination and criminal liability for IRS employees who knowingly violate the constitutional rights of a taxpayer. The need for the legislation is demonstrated by current reports of the IRS deliberately targeting conservative organizations, and the amendment expressly states that political speech and political expression are protected rights.

“This IRS scandal has destroyed the American people’s confidence in this government institution and exposed the dangers of a large, unaccountable government operating under a President and administration that routinely intimidate and harass their political opponents,” said Rubio. “With every new twist and turn in this IRS scandal, one can’t help but think that this is the type of thing that only occurs in third world countries, not in the United States of America.

“Those responsible for this political targeting at the IRS should face all appropriate punishment available under current law, and all organizations and individuals who engage in political speech and expression should be protected against this kind of discriminatory behavior in the future,” added Rubio.

To view the amendment, click here.

Marco Rubio to join Jeb, Weatherford et al at MavPAC's Miami July meeting

@MarcACaputo

From a press release:

Miami, Florida (May 21, 2013) –U.S. Senator, Marco Rubio, has confirmed his attendance as a presenter at the MavPAC annual conference occurring July 12-13 in Miami, Florida.

"I'm excited to join MavPAC for their annual conference, and in support of their mission to cultivate the future leaders of our movement," said Senator Marco Rubio. "Through MavPac, we have an opportunity to bring together young reform-minded conservatives who don't just want change, but are willing to put the work in to achieve change."

After Democrat brinksmanship, House group reaches immigration deal

@MarcACaputo& @FrancoOrdonez

A bipartisan U.S. House group hammered out an immigration-reform deal late Thursday after years of closed-door meetings and last-minute brinksmanship from a top Democrat.

The final agreement, which could be drafted into legislation by June 1, came together after California Rep. Xavier Becerra dropped what sources said was a blanket objection to denying immigrants healthcare benefits after they become legalized as part of a pathway to citizenship.

The House members and their aides refused to discuss many particulars, although it’s clear that portions of their bill are more conservative than the plan from the Democratically controlled Senate.

The House plan would call for a citizenship path that last 15 years – two years longer than the Senate version.

But it’s not too conservative, either.

“It’s pretty clear if we’re going to pass legislation, it has to be bipartisan,” Rep. Mario Diaz Balart, R-Miami.

“The reason this has been a long arduous and difficult process – again if I had drafted it myself it would have been different – but the fact is you have to keep both parties on board.”

Cuban-American lawyer group: Grassley amendment bad for Cuban refugees

One of the least-talked about but most-significant aspects of the nation's immigration debate is the outsized influence of Cuban-Americans. Sen. Marco Rubio is helping push the immigration bill with Sen. Bob Menendez and Sen. Ted Cruz is essentially fighting them. In the House, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart is one of the key players.

So perhaps it's little wonder that Cuban refugees, who get a de facto pathway to citizenship by virtue of longstanding U.S. law, will continue to get that special immigration treatment.

Still, there are concerns in the Cuban-American community with the immigration debate. Today, the Cuban American Bar Association wrote a letter voicing its opposition to one of the many amendments to the Senate's immigration bill offered by Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa.

Some key excerpts:

In CABA’s view, one shared by many practitioners and scholars of constitutional and immigration law, “Grassley53” would permit a process contrary to the Supreme Court’s decisions in Zadvydas v. Davis, 588 U.S. 678 (2001), and Clark v. Martinez, 543 U.S. 371 (2005), as well as federal district court rulings. “Grassley53” would allow the Department of Homeland Security to indefinitely detain Cuban refugees, as well as others in similar situations, with final removal orders that cannot be carried out.

Marco Rubio to Jack Lew: IRS commissioner needs to resign

From a press release:

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) today urged Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to demand the resignation of the current Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner, in light of reports about the agency’s deliberate targeting of conservative organizations.

“[I]t is clear the IRS cannot operate with even a shred of the American people’s confidence under the current leadership,” said Rubio in a letter to Lew. “I strongly urge that you and President Obama demand the IRS Commissioner’s resignation, effectively immediately. No government agency that has behaved in such a manner can possibly instill any faith and respect from the American public.”

Rubio also called on Lew to ensure the Treasury Department’s full cooperation with all investigations regarding this scandal.

“The American people deserve answers about how such seemingly unconstitutional and potentially criminal behavior could occur, and who else was aware of it throughout the Administration,” Rubio wrote. “If investigations reveal that bureaucrats or political appointees engaged in unconstitutional or criminal targeting of conservative taxpayers, they must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Below is the full text of the letter:

"Amnesty is amnesty:" Rubio, Diaz-Balart have immigration problems in FL's delegation

A sizable number of Florida's Republican U.S. House members have problems with the Senate immigration bill championed by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

And that spells trouble for ultimate passage in the GOP-controlled House even as a Senate committee marks up the bill today. There, Rubio's longtime friend and de facto immigration expert Mario Diaz-Balart is trying to gain consensus behind the scenes. Obviously, it's not easy.

"No matter how you might color it, amnesty is amnesty," Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Indian Shores, told The Tampa Bay Times.

Diaz-Balart and Rubio say they're not for amnesty, but amnesty is in the eye of the beholder. And there are a lot of beholders.

Story here

Social Security number-cruncher: immigration bill boosts retirement program, decreases illegal entry

@MarcACaputo

From a press release:

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Marco Rubio today welcomed encouraging preliminary findings from the Social Security Administration’s Chief Actuary regarding S. 744, the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act.”  According to Chief Actuary Stephen C. Goss, “Overall, we anticipate that the net effect of this bill on the long-range OASDI actuarial balance will be positive. This positive effect for increased immigration is consistent with the sensitivity analysis contained in the 2012 Trustees Report.”

The Actuary’s Office also claims that, over the next 10 years, the legislation will prevent 2 million illegal immigrants from coming to the U.S., create 3.22 million jobs, and increase our gross domestic product by 1.63 percent more than if the status quo is left in place.

Jim DeMint's immigrant-bashing researcher thinks Marco Rubio's dumber than DeMint due to ethnicity

@MarcACaputo via ThinkProgress:

The Heritage Foundation’s analysis of the economic consequences of immigration reform uses absurd methodology to come to conclusions entirely at odds with the organization’s own findings in 2006. Perhaps one explanation for this incoherence is that one of the paper’s coauthors, a new hire, opposes Hispanic immigration because he thinks Latinos are stupid.

Jason Richwine joined Heritage in 2010, after finishing his PhD in Public Policy in 2009. The Washington Post’s Dylan Matthews dug up Richwine’s dissertation, which was titled “IQ And Immigration.” In it, Richwine argues that Hispanics have and will always have lower IQs than whites. Matthews summarizes:

Richwine’s dissertation asserts that there are deep-set differentials in intelligence between races. While it’s clear he thinks it is partly due to genetics — ‘the totality of the evidence suggests a genetic component to group differences in IQ’ — he argues the most important thing is that the differences in group IQs are persistent, for whatever reason. He writes, ‘No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-IQ children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against.‘

Marco Rubio pushes back against Jim DeMint/Heritage Report

@learyreports

Sen. Marco Rubio, who kept silent yesterday as the Heritage Foundation released a study asserting massive costs under immigration reform, sharply pushed back today and offered up his parents as evidence of the immigrant contribution.

"Their argument is based on a single premise, which I think is flawed," Rubio told reporters. "That is, these people are disproportionately poor because they have no education and they will be poor for the rest of their lives in the U.S. Quite frankly, that’s not the immigration experience in the U.S. That’s certainly not my family’s experience in the U.S. The folks described in that report are my family. My mother and dad didn’t graduate high school and I would not say they were a burden on the United States

The "Rubio Amnesty" ripped in National Review

@MarcACaputo

Mark Krikorian, perhaps the most-eloquent and thoughtful immigration hardliner, breaks down the Senate immigration bill and Sen. Marco Rubio's involvement in it in the National Review:

With its Obamacare-style expanse and complexity, the bill contains much more than what is sketched above. Democrats packed it with as many loopholes and immigration-lawyer schemes as they thought they could get away with. Rubio’s staff, like most GOP Senate staff, are relative amateurs on immigration, while Schumer’s people are pros. This is how Ted Kennedy dominated immigration policy for so long. (The House GOP committee staff on immigration, on the other hand, are professionals with long experience.)

Opposition to the bill should be the obvious position for conservatives who care about immigration enforcement and don’t want to open the spigots even wider to low-skilled immigration. Whatever the discrepancies between Rubio’s assurances and the reality of the bill, though, he has now lashed himself to it. His convoluted justifications for various provisions suggest that he’s decided to do what he must to sell it. He’s made the laughable argument that the bill doesn’t give anything new to illegal immigrants because they can already return home and apply to come here legally. (This sounds a lot like what Mitt Romney called “self-deportation.”) He’s claimed that amnesty must precede enforcement because the enforcement measures would throw millions of illegals out of work, creating a humanitarian crisis. In fact, the three security triggers, if enacted on their own, would have only a gradual impact on the existing illegal population.

In the months leading up to the introduction of S.744, conservatives looked hopefully to Rubio as their representative on the Gang of Eight, someone who would make sure its plan didn’t turn out to be a call for de facto open borders. Early on, Rubio may well have seen that as his role. But he is now much less the conservative ambassador to the Gang of Eight than the Gang’s ambassador to conservatives.