Rubio turns back on immigrants again, ditching Gang of Eight effort to protect DREAMers from Trump

There's got to be a special place for elected officials who always, always put their finger up to the political winds in order to decide which stand to take. Predictably, Sen. Marco Rubio doesn't want to jeopardize his next presidential bid by trying to help some 740,000 undocumented immigrants who received temporary deportation relief through President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of senators, lead by Sens. Dick Durbin and Lindsey Graham, is drafting legislation to protect DACA recipients from deportation under Trump. Graham is joined by GOP Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake in believing these young immigrants brought to the U.S. as minors represent a "special situation," in part because the federal government now has their names and addresses after they signed up for the program. But the final GOP member of “the gang,” Rubio, is just a little too interested in his own future to be a part of the solution. Sabrina Siddiqui writes:

Senator Marco Rubio, the fourth Republican member of the Gang of Eight, said he did not have any current plans to get involved in his colleagues’ efforts. The former Republican presidential candidate told the Guardian he preferred to wait and see what direction the incoming administration would take, while reaffirming his preference for allowing Daca beneficiaries to hold their permits until they expire.

“Daca is unconstitutional and at some point it needs to go away, preferably because it’s been replaced by legislation,” Rubio said. “We don’t have anything in the works right now.”

Really, it's hard to overstate just how craven that statement is. Something clearly is in the works and, if DACA is unconstitutional, as Rubio says, he could take part in the legislative effort to remedy the situation. Just because Rubio's likely to skip the vote, doesn't mean the legislation doesn't exist.