Rubio embraces 'self-deportation,' skewering Trump's one-time criticism of the phrase

Ted Cruz has consistently tried to outflank Donald Trump to the right on immigration by saying that once all 11 million undocumented immigrants are kicked out, he wouldn't even consider letting them back in. But now Marco Rubio thinks he's found an in with the GOP's nativist crowd by lifting up Mitt Romney's disastrous 2012 solution to immigration: Making life so miserable for undocumented immigrants that they choose to “self-deport.” 

Here's Rubio at Thursday night's debate: 

“In 2012, Donald criticized Mitt Romney, saying that Mitt lost his election because of self-deportation. […]

“My point that I made was you had criticized Mitt Romney for self-deportation. You said that his strategy of self- deportation is why he lost the election. […]

“I agree we should have won and I wished we would have, but, in fact, you did criticize him for using the term ‘self-deportation.’”

As Rubio urged viewers to look it up online, Trump deflected, saying that he merely criticized Romney for "losing the election. He should have won that election."

But Steve Benen points to the significance of Rubio resurrecting "self-deportation," a line that has routinely been linked to Romney's poor performance with Latino voters.