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Washington, DC — Yesterday, at a Miami rally, Donald Trump continued his relentless and lurid focus on immigration lies while reiterating his plans for mass roundups and deportations. The remarks follow the release of the Republican Party’s official 2024 platform, which reflects Trump’s full takeover of the GOP and the party’s official stamp of approval for the forced removal of millions of long-settled immigrants and embrace of dangerous white nationalist immigration conspiracy theory about an immigrant invasion and plot to replace white voters – lies already linked to several acts of domestic terrorism.   

Potential Trump Vice Presidential choice Marco Rubio was in attendance at the rally – continuing to embody the freefall descent of the Republican Party on a trajectory sharper than the golden escalator at Trump Tower down which Trump descended to declare Mexicans rapists in 2015. Senator Rubio’s current stance, as he attempts to land the job of Vice President, is at odds with his past stated criticisms of Trump and support for citizenship – not deportation – for long-settled immigrants. On a recent appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Senator Rubio endorsed Trump’s mass-deportation vision despite the potential consequences for all of Florida. When pressed about what caused such a radical shift in his thinking, Rubio asserted that “the issue has changed,” citing the volume of recent asylum seekers and migrants, and that his past support for immigration reform involved a population “of 11 or 12 million people who had been here for longer than a decade.”  

Yet, it is precisely the 11 or 12 million people who have lived here for decades who work in hospitality, agriculture, construction, and other key sectors in Senator Rubio’s home state who would be in the crosshairs of the Republican Party’s all-caps pledge to “CARRY OUT THE LARGEST DEPORTATION OPERATION IN AMERICAN HISTORY.” Trump’s promised mass purge and second-term deportations that the Republican Party and Senator Rubio have endorsed wouldn’t just be directed at newer asylum seekers and migrants that have been flashpoints in recent years, but also against Dreamers and the long-settled undocumented population – the 11 million – that Rubio once supported.

According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice: 

“Marco Rubio and other Florida Republicans who once recognized the importance of immigrants to America’s strength and vitality are now lining up behind Donald Trump and his unsparing plans for a mass purge featuring mass roundups, mass detentions, and mass deportations. In Florida alone, hundreds of thousands of long-settled immigrant families who turbo-charge Florida’s economy would be deported under the Trump-Rubio plan.

Would the roundups begin in the restaurants on Calle 8 in Miami or the hotels of Orlando? Or the construction sites along the Gulf and the citrus, avocado and vegetable fields across the state? How far is Senator Rubio willing to go to destroy his own state’s economic lifeblood to win the job of Trump’s VP?  

Across America, Trump and Stephen Miller’s dark vision would rip apart virtually every state and community that has absorbed long-established immigrants who contribute essential work every day to keep America’s economy strong. In Florida, mass deportation of immigrant communities would devastate the state’s economy – from the hospitality and hotel industries to agricultural and construction workers who keep Florida and America growing and renewing. Senator Rubio and other Florida Republicans who are now pledging fealty to Donald Trump owe their constituents more explanations for why they are supporting the ‘largest deportation operation in history’ – knowing that ‘no one is off the table’ – despite its potential toll and destruction for all.”

  Immigration, mass deportations, Rubio, Trump