How Marco Rubio Gave In to Democrats on the Immigration Reform Bill

In December 2012, four Democratic and four Republicans senators, known as the Gang of Eight, began drafting a comprehensive immigration reform bill that would provide a pathway to citizenship for the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. One of the first and most important negotiations was over who would qualify for that pathway. Would all undocumented immigrants be eligible, or would some be left in the shadows?

Democrats sought to grant them all access to the long road to citizenship. Sen. Marco Rubio, the most conservative Republican in the group, wanted to require undocumented immigrants to have lived in the country for five years in order to be eligible. And so the negotiations began.

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