Rubio’s Radicalization from Citizenship to Mass Deportation

In 11 years, Sen. Rubio has gone from calling for a path to citizenship to invoking white nationalist conspiracies to call for the deportation of millions.

This week, Radley Balko wrote an article at The Watch, titled “Trump’s Deportation Army,” a must-read detailed analysis of the chilling plans for a second Trump term:

We ought to take it more seriously. Trump has made 15 million deportations a central part of his 2024 campaign. And he’s stepped up the dehumanizing of immigrants he’ll need to get a significant portion of the country on board.

Even if Trump gets distracted, it’s likely he’ll put Stephen Miller in charge of the plan. Miller is the only non-relative senior staffer who served the entirety of the first Trump term. And Miller won’t be distracted. Ridding the country of non-white immigrants has been a core part of his identity for his entire life. Miller himself has long made clear that the distinction that matters most to him is not between “legal” and “illegal,” but between white and non-white immigrants.

As Balko explained, Miller has stated exactly what they plan to do:

In November, Miller offered the details of his plan in an interview with Charlie Kirk. Miller plans to bring in the National Guard, state and local police, other federal police agencies like the DEA and ATF, and if necessary, the military. Miller’s deportation force would then infiltrate cities and neighborhoods, going door to door and business to business in search of undocumented immigrants. He plans to house the millions of immigrants he wants to expel in tent camps along the border, then use military planes to transport them back to their countries of origin.

As Balko and others like Ron Brownstein have begun to document, Trump and Miller are serious about executing the largest mass deportation in US history. Trump states it repeatedly during his campaign rallies while Miller is putting the machinations into place. They may have failed to achieve a similar, but as Past President and General Counsel American Immigration Lawyers Association David Leopold notes: 

“we cannot count on the courts this time. If another Trump presidency emerges,  the country won’t have the luxury of having public servants in place who will say “no” to policies that violate the law, leaving little, if any, internal restraint in the agencies.  As bad as things were during Trump’s chaotic first term, there were public servants in the federal (and state) agencies who had the moral courage to thwart some of his dangerously extremist plans.  But “disloyal” public servants will be removed and replaced with Trump sycophants on Day 1.  Nor will the American people be able to rely on an independent judiciary to impose the rule of law. 

That’s why these words uttered by Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio (FL-R) on Meet The Press, last Sunday are both dangerous and enraging:

“The answer to your question is ‘yes.’”

Rubio said those words when asked if he supported  Trump’s plan to use the military to deport millions of our undocumented neighbors, family, and friends from the country.  He was telling the nation that he is fully on board with Trump sending troops in humvees and armored personnel carriers to the neighborhoods of communities in Miami and Hialeah to round up anyone who the deportation force thinks is undocumented.

Every Republican should be asked if they support Trump, of course. But Rubio’s trajectory here is an especially craven example of how radicalized and extreme the GOP has become.

In 2013, as Rubio prepared to sponsor the Senate “Gang of Eight” immigration reform bill, he did an interview with Time Magazine where he played a voicemail message from his mother encouraging him to help immigrants:

“Tony, some loving advice from the person who cares for you most in the world,” she said in Spanish. “Don’t mess with the immigrants, my son. Please, don’t mess with them.” She reminded him that undocumented Americans—los pobrecitos, she called them, the poor things—work hard and get treated horribly. “They’re human beings just like us, and they came for the same reasons we came. To work. To improve their lives. So please, don’t mess with them.”

The Senate bill, which along with increased border security measures included a pathway to citizenship, passed in June of 2013 by a 68-32 margin. Yet, a few months later, Rubio started to ditch his mother’s pleas and distance himself from his own bill as the nativist flank, including Miller, Steve Bannon, and others who would be key allies for Trump, began to construct the nativist narrative machine.  

Yet, even in 2016, as he ran for President in the GOP primaries against Trump, Rubio didn’t back the mass deportation agenda. 

NBC’s Kristen Welker reminded him when she played the clip of his position then “Senator, here's what you said about Donald Trump's mass deportation proposals in 2016. Take a look”

RUBIO:  I don't think it's reasonable to say you're going to round up and deport 11 million people. I don't think it's a plan that works. I don't think that's a realistic policy.

Now, Rubio is eagerly on board with Trump’s mass deportation plan, asserting there are some 30 million people he thinks should be on the list for the round-ups.  has a plan that works and is a realistic policy. 

At The Signorile Report, Mike Signorile provided context for Rubio’s remarks as they relate to the disinfo and Trump’s ultimate goals:

By the way, there’s no evidence of the wildly overblown numbers Rubio is putting out there, as most research and surveys still show the number of undocumented immigrants to be closer to 11 million.

But Trump has also inflated the number, and we know that he and the MAGA extremists want to stop legal immigration as well—there are over 46 million foreign-born immigrants in the U.S.—as he’s stated he wants people from “nice” countries like Denmark and Norway to come here. In other words, no more Brown and Black people.

Exactly. 

A key point Balko made is that the mastermind of the plan has a very clear world views, “Miller himself has long made clear that the distinction that matters most to him is not between “legal” and “illegal,”  Anyone who has followed Miller over the years know of his commitment to white nationalist vision for immigration policy. 

Rubio also helps to drive this point home, embracing the white nationalist “invasion” rhetoric to provide a justification for the flipped position and for putting military boots on US soil. This racist lie that non-white migrants constitute a literal military-style invasion of the country has been widely adopted by the GOP and at the same time been the inspiration for multiple domestic terrorist attacks in recent years. 

So that leaves us with a prominent Republican Latino U.S. Senator who thinks Trump’s plans are worthwhile.  It’s critical to understand what Trump’s mass deportation would mean for the nation. Florida got a sense of what would happen after Governor DeSantis’ anti-immigrant law passed. Farmers are losing workers. Construction too. Immigrants are leaving the state. 

And, that’s before the federal sweeps start. 

One of Miller’s allies, former Acting DHS Secretary Mark Morgan, told the Wall Street Journal that fear is part of their strategy:

Morgan said any mass deportation operation would be contingent in part on immigrants—fearing arrest—simply turning themselves in to the authorities voluntarily. 

“If they actually see a whole-of-government, expanded commitment to start arresting and deporting people,” Morgan said, “we hope people would come and work with the federal government to have themselves repatriated.”

When the orders are given for the military or red-state National Guard troops to roll through the streets of Miami and other American cities, that fear could become very clear. And not just for those with status but for those whose skin color, accent, or religion may mark them as questionable to the deportation force.  

This plan extends well beyond undocumented immigrants to their friends, family, and communities. 

 Marco Rubio, who frequently told his parents’ immigrant story, should, but won’t, really take that to heart.  Non-white residents, whether U.S. citizens or not, won’t be immune. As our colleague Gabe Ortiz detailed:

 “U.S. citizenship will be no guarantee of protection for many people of color if indicted former President Donald Trump and white nationalist aide Stephen Miller return to the White House in January 2025 to carry out their mass-purging of millions of workers and families from their homes, jobs, and neighborhoods.”

And, to be clear, TPS holders and DACA recipients won’t be safe either. 

And, Balko is also spot on when he writes, We ought to take it more seriously. They mean it this time and they’re not hiding it.