While fellow Floridian Republican Gov. Jeb Bush reaffirms his commitment to immigration reform, Sen. Marco Rubio is upping his appeal to the conservative base by backing off in his support for the issue.
Rubio elicited laughter from the audience at CPAC during a Q&A session with Fox News' Sean Hannity when he admitted that his support for the 2013 bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill "wasn't very popular, I don't know if you know that from some of the folks here."
Changing his tune ahead of a probable 2016 presidential run, Rubio now says that he "gets" that there are millions of people living in America illegally who have not broken any other law, but that he has "learned you can't even have a conversation about that until people believe and know… that future illegal immigration will be controlled."
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The Hill reports that while acknowledging the error of his ways on immigration reform, Rubio also touched on the importance of border security.
"You can't just tell people you're going to secure the border, we're going to do E-Verify," Rubio said, "you have to do that, they have to see it, they have to see it working."
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