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Marco Rubio speaks during a town hall campaign stop in New Hampshire this week. Photograph: Jim Cole/AP

Marco Rubio insists he supports immigration reform and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, even as he has shifted from once backing a comprehensive overhaul of the system to now advocating a piecemeal approach.

Related: Altar, Mexico: how the 'migrant oasis' for would-be border crossers became a trap

But during time spent with Rubio on the presidential campaign trail, attempting to get underneath the rhetoric and into the specifics of his immigration plan proves challenging. Should the Florida senator secure the Republican nomination, immigration could be a critical factor in his chances of reaching the White House.

Rubio says he has simply changed his tactics, not his broader position, on how to resolve a decades-long debate. But immigration advocates believe the devil is in the details and Rubio, at least for now, appears reluctant to identify the metrics and timetables they say are crucial to ensuring that the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the US can even apply for work permits, let alone citizenship.

Presidential candidates on both sides have recognized the growing influence of Latino voters, and Rubio, the son of working class Cuban immigrants, is seen as one of the Republicans best hopes of bringing into its fold a demographic that has overwhelmingly favored the Democrats.

But with immigration driving a wedge between Republican primary voters, Rubio has tried to straddle both sides of the immigration debate maintaining that he is personally open to green cards for undocumented immigrants but emphasizing an enforcement-first approach.

During town halls in New Hampshire and Iowa over the past few months and at a Latino forum in Nevada last week, Rubio has answered questions on immigration by laying out the same step-by-step process. His plan begins first and foremost with securing the border. Then he will seek to modernize the legal immigration system and only once those steps are complete, he says, will he begin to address those 11 million undocumented immigrants.

He has said quite clearly that undocumented immigrants would not be eligible to apply for work permits until the first two steps of his plan were met.

Its just impossible to get people to even vote on [work permits] until weve done the other things, Rubio told reporters in Las Vegas last week, after the Guardian asked when undocumented immigrants would be eligible to apply for work permits under a Rubio administration.

When the Guardian posed a follow-up question on how a Rubio administration would determine that illegal immigration was under control and who would decide an appropriate number the senator remained vague.

People need to see and honestly believe that the problem is not getting worse, that its getting better

Ultimately wed have to work on what that number is and what people think is reasonable, Rubio said. Its never been zero so it wont be zero, but it cant be what it is now.

People need to see and honestly believe that the problem is not getting worse, that its getting better. And until we are achieving that, I dont think were going to have the political support that we need to move forward on the other pieces of it.

The answers were consistent with what Rubio first detailed in American Dreams, a book he released earlier this year that confirmed his preference for moving immigration bills in individual pieces. The shift came after Rubio co-authored a comprehensive immigration reform bill that passed the Senate in 2013 but died in the House of Representatives amid intense opposition from conservatives over its inclusion of a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented.

The Republican primary electorate remains deeply divided on immigration and ranks border security as a matter of utmost importance. One faction likens any path to citizenship or even legal status to amnesty. This has been seized upon by real-estate mogul Donald Trump, the presidential frontrunner whose sharp anti-immigration rhetoric stands in contrast to the stance of pro-reform candidates like Rubio.

Rubios predicament has often been on display as he travels the country with a pitch rooted in his own story. The topic of immigration is raised often, from town halls to local and national interviews and shouts from occasional protesters.

Rubios answer is the same each time. He first identifies three problems: illegal immigration that is out of control, a broken legal immigration system, and the fact that millions of immigrants are already in the country illegally. Then, drawing on the failure of his own bill, he underscores that his piecemeal approach is the only viable option.

Related: US immigration reform bill passes Senate in rare breakthrough

You have to deal with all three of these things, the problem is you cant deal with all of that at once, Rubio said at a Las Vegas forum hosted by the Libre Initiative, a grassroots conservative group that aims to make inroads among Hispanic voters. I know, we tried. We dont have the votes. We dont have the support to do it that way.

Youre not going to round up and deport 11 or 12 million people, and youre also not going to blanket award 11 or 12 million citizenship cards.

But as Rubio went through his plan enhance border security by beefing up personnel and fencing off certain sections; set up an entry-exit tracking system to crack down on visa overstays; move toward a merit-based visa system, away from the current family-based system the mostly Hispanic audience reserved its applause for the mention of green cards.

For the latter step, Rubio laid out a pathway that mirrored his Senate bill: undocumented immigrants would pass a background check, learn English, pay a fine, start paying taxes and get a work permit. They would remain in that status for at least 10 years, after which Rubio said he would personally support allowing some to apply for a green card.

What Rubio didnt say was what security triggers he would support for the legalization process to commence, other than that it was imperative to prove to skeptics that illegal immigration was under control.

Advocates are far from sold. Daniel Garza, executive director of the Libre Initiative and moderator of the Las Vegas forum, said he agreed with Rubios framing of the political limitations around immigration reform.

But Garza said he was concerned that Rubio had yet to define the security measures and proof points that would show enforcement was working, to trigger a path to work permits and green cards.

He said, were not going to control all of [illegal immigration], were just going to bring it under control so thats very vague, Garza said. Are we securing the border entirely? How do we at least mitigate it to the point where now we can talk about these other pieces?

At least lets get the certainty of a work-visa program for the 12 million [undocumented immigrants] Hes for it, hes said that, which is great. But how long is it going to take? And thats the million-dollar question.

The Senate bill Rubio co-sponsored included security triggers, such as a goal of intercepting 90% of people trying to cross the border illegally in high-risk areas.

The bill also included a requirement that a specific plan for gaining operational control of the border be created, funded and initiated within six months of the bills enactment, before undocumented immigrants could apply for work permits. And it established a 10-year timetable for specific benchmarks, such as mandatory employment verification and the implementation of an entry-exit tracking system to stop visa overstays, that would open the path to permanent residence and then citizenship.

Frank Sharry, director of Americas Voice, a progressive immigration reform advocacy group, said Rubios plan to disconnect the triggers from the path to citizenship essentially meant no reform.

The step-by-step approach, he said, would rest on a hypothetical scenario in which Republicans either changed their mind about a path to legal status or Democrats were suddenly willing to embrace measures they have already ruled out, such as cutting family reunification visas.

Rubio says now that once Republicans believe and see that illegal immigration is under control, based on goalposts he refuses to set and specify, in a time frame that extends beyond his presidency, immigrants could be allowed to get work permits and someday citizenship, Sharry said.

[Rubio's] isnt a realistic strategy, its a cruel joke. For years Republicans have kept moving the goalposts

That isnt a realistic strategy, its a cruel joke. For years Republicans have kept moving the goalposts on what constitutes a secure border because it allows them to avoid the issue of legalizing undocumented immigrants, an issue that divides the GOP.

Rubio has certainly left himself with plenty of room to pivot in a general election, to a plan both more specific and more likely to succeed. But whether he has left himself enough space to attract sufficient support from Hispanic voters which his own pollster said earlier this year would need to be somewhere in the mid-40s, or better for a Republican to win the general election is hard to say.

Mark Hugo Lopez, the director of Hispanic research at the Pew Research Center, said Democrats have had a sizable advantage over Republicans among Latino voters. He did caution, however, that support for a pathway to citizenship is not necessarily a dealbreaker among the voting bloc that ranks jobs and the economy as its top priority and could settle for a candidate who simply supports legal status.

But Lopez acknowledged that Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner, has enjoyed broad favorability among Latino voters which will likely be compounded by her early and aggressive courtship of a demographic that twice voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama.

Clinton has positioned herself further to the left on issues like providing undocumented immigrants with drivers licenses and promising to defend and even expand Obamas executive orders on immigration. The president has signed two major actions to date: one in 2012 that provided deportation relief to millions of undocumented young people who came to the US as children, known as DREAMers, and another last year that would extend the program to millions of parents of US citizens and legal permanent residents.

Rubio has said he would end both programs as president, arguing that such reforms should be debated through the legislative process and not enacted using executive authority. But that position has been met with objections from immigration activists who at times show up to protest his events.

After one town hall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, an undocumented immigrant confronted Rubio on why he would seek to end Obamas executive actions at a time when the threat of deportation could separate millions of families. Rubio responded by noting that the US, like every country, has immigration laws and must enforce them.

Democrats and some pro-reform advocates have attacked Rubios narrative, arguing that his enforcement-heavy immigration plan could very well postpone the debate over a path to citizenship until after his presidency. At a campaign stop in Florida late last month, the Guardian asked Rubio for his response to that assertion.

He reiterated his three-step plan and his openness to undocumented immigrants eventually applying for green cards, not through a special pathway but through the same one that everyone is using, and thats consistently been my plan.

David Damore, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas who has focused on Latino voting trends, suggested Rubio will need to make a harder sell on his consistency.

At this point hes pretty much got every position on immigration at some point in the last couple of years, Damore said. If it looks like its political expedience, thats problematic.

Following his events last week in Las Vegas, Rubio defended his stance as very reasonable and said he was confident most Hispanic voters would agree.

Speaking in Spanish after a Spanish-language news outlet asked if he risked turning away Latino voters with his emphasis on enforcement, he said: I think I have the support of the majority of people in this country, including Hispanics, for enforcing our laws, so that the problem doesnt continue to get worse, and to deal in a responsible way forward for the people who are here.

Pressed further on whether he was giving up on immigration reform, Rubio insisted he was committed to the process.

I want to push a result, he said. I dont just want to have a position on it, I want us to fix it.

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Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton pledged on Thursday to work from the very first day in office, if she wins the presidency in 2016, for immigration reform that brings the millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States out of the shadows.

Clinton addressed the issue during a question and answer session in San Antonio with the president of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Javier Palomarez, who is a supporter of regularizing the immigration status of undocumented migrants.

Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner, said that, if elected president, she will uphold and continue with the executive measures taken last November by President Barack Obama to legalize nearly half of the 11 million undocumented foreigners living in the United States.

She said that comprehensive immigration reform where people are brought out of the shadows would be "good for our economy."

The former first lady, who had frequently expressed her commitment to creating a path to citizenship for immigrants, said that immigration reform would make the U.S. labor market more efficient and undocumented workers would stop being exploited.

To illustrate the benefits that changes in immigration policy would bring to the U.S. economy, Clinton said that currently undocumented migrants contribute $12 billion per year to Social Security without being able to benefit from it.

If immigration reform is approved, the contribution of those people to Social Security would rise to $21 billion, she claimed.

During her address, Clinton also came out in favor of "opening more doors" to Hispanic businesses with seminars and conferences that enable them to expand their contacts, as well as initiatives to make understanding the U.S. bureaucracy easier for Hispanic businessmen.

The debate on immigration has become more intense due to comments by real estate magnate and Republican frontrunning presidential candidate Donald Trump, who proposes building a wall along the border with Mexico and deporting all undocumented foreigners.

Clinton said that the Democratic presidential debate on Tuesday evening stood in sharp contrast to the "prejudice and paranoia" that has been heard at the Republican debates.

The former secretary of state also criticized the "harsh and inflammatory language" on immigration being used by certain Republican candidates, who - motivated by the push such statements have given Trump in the voter surveys - have upped their rhetoric against immigrants. EFE

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Thursday, October 15, 2015 | 11:25 AM

PHILADELPHIA, United States (AP) Cristina Martinez arrives at work at 4:00 am, ties a white apron high across her chest, and starts preparing a lamb cooked in vapor for 10 hours.

An hour later, she and her husband, Ben Miller, open their South Philadelphia restaurant, Barbacoa, serving premium tacos and hefty sides of activism in their bid to mobilize restaurateurs on behalf of the many undocumented immigrants who work in America's kitchens.

Hosting organizational meetings and screening documentaries, the couple hopes to spark a culinary crusade in a city famous for its restaurant scene and pressure the deadlocked Congress to overhaul the immigration laws.

"Mexican undocumented workers are in every restaurant in this country," Miller wrote in one online post. "They cook, clean, and busboy for Marc Vetri, Steven Starr, Jose Garces, every hotel, every university dining hall, and in our restaurant . . . as well."

It's no secret that immigrants, many of them undocumented, are essential to America's $550-billion-a-year restaurant trade. The Pew Hispanic Center has estimated that 20 percent of the nation's 2.6 million chefs, head cooks, and line cooks are here illegally, as are 28 percent of the 360,000 dishwashers.

"All I want," Miller said in an interview, "is for some chefs to step up and say, 'Yes, we are in favor of making a way for our undocumented workers. They matter.' "

The Philadelphia-area restaurant all-stars who Miller has called out on Facebook have thus far stayed silent. A spokeswoman for Garces said he declined to comment. Neither Vetri nor Starr responded to multiple interview requests.

But others said Miller's message begs an important conversation.

David Suro, a native of Mexico who opened the Center City restaurant Tequilas 29 years ago, estimated the city's commercial kitchens and dining rooms employ at least 1,500 Mexican immigrants as cooks, servers, busboys, and dishwashers. He said his policy is in line with what he believes is true of the other major restaurant employers: "Anyone hired must have papers."

That's not always so easily determined, Suro said, acknowledging the possibility of forgeries. "But they pay their taxes" through payroll withholding, he said, "and are very hardworking."

Tom McCusker, chef-owner of Honest Tom's Tacos in West Philadelphia, supports Miller as someone who "kind of broke the barrier to talk openly about this."

But he said Miller needs big-name support if his cause is to get lift. "If one of those dudes signed off," he said, "we could run with this."

What Miller, 31, has in mind is a movement built on the testimonials of prominent chefs who might be more comfortable talking about a sensitive subject if they tackle it together. He wants the federal government to create restaurant guest-worker permits so workers can "travel home for five days at Christmas," or attend family funerals, without fear of arrest. He wants recognition that anyone who dines out benefits from the labour of immigrants, many of whom are undocumented.

A quirky, unlikely standard bearer who said he lived in shelters for a while and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour indecent assault charge a decade ago Miller said his knowledge of the restaurant scene comes from having worked at two prominent Philadelphia eateries alongside people he knew to be undocumented but otherwise upstanding.

"While they are here, they are paying taxes," he said. "They are consumers, shopping at the Acme, willing to do the (low-level kitchen) jobs . . . that kids who come out of culinary school don't want to do."

His desire to use Barbacoa as a platform for social change, he said, is driven largely by his love for Martinez. They met working at another restaurant, and married in 2012.

She was a 6-year-old in Mexico, she said, when her mother and father taught her to cook the succulent barbecue they sold at open-air markets.

Forty-six and moonfaced, with black hair in a tight bun now, she moves by rote in Barbacoa's kitchen, where her thoughts often turn to her daughter, Karla, 23, a nursing student in the Mexican state of Michoacan.

Martinez said she came illegally to the United States in 2009 to earn money for Karla's tuition and expenses, about $2,000 monthly, which was unattainable as a barbacoa peddler in Mexico.

Then a single mother of four, she had made the perilous trek across the desert to the U.S. before and knew the drill: a bit of peyote to battle fatigue; a plastic bottle to scrounge water from cow troughs; the clothes on her back.

Caught by US Border Patrol and fingerprinted in 2006, Martinez has an "unlawful presence" on her record, which makes her ineligible for a green card despite her marriage to Miller, a U.S. citizen, who was raised in Easton.

Among the hardships of being undocumented, she said, the hardest is being unable to go home to see her family and return to Philadelphia without another desert crossing and at least $8,000 to pay the human smugglers. She could leave and try to return legally but the law bars people with her immigration status from applying for 10 years.

So the couple behind Barbacoa, which began as a lunch cart near their home on South Eighth Street, and opened as a storefront on South 11th in July, saw no alternative but to add movement-building to their menu.

On September 20, with 25 people in attendance, they screened the documentary The Hand That Feeds, about working conditions at a New York City sandwich shop. A meeting to discuss an unspecified "direct action" campaign to take effect in the spring is scheduled for Nov. 8.

Miller imagines a "show of solidarity" in which restaurant owners would close for a day and issue a joint statement to raise consciousness about the needs of the industry's workforce.

The National Restaurant Association, the country's largest restaurant industry group, has lobbied Congress for immigration reform, including "a path to legalization" for undocumented immigrants. The industry has a lot of power, Miller said.

"Of course, it's a personal story, with my wife and me," he said. "But it is also about our customers and colleagues in food service. We want these people to have stability and comfort."

He said he's not advocating just opening the borders. But he wants debate.

"Donald Trump has his podium. He has his microphone," Miller said. "We can't let that be the only one."

There is some precedent for prominent people, including former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, speaking out on immigration. "Our businesses broke the law by employing them," he told Congress in 2006. "(But) our city's economy would be a shell of itself had they not, and it would collapse if they were deported."

Speaking to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus last week, Washington, DC-based restaurateur Jose Andres, who recently backed out of a deal to open a restaurant in a Trump hotel after Trump disparaged Mexicans and called for mass deportations, echoed the sentiment. "Who is going to be feeding America," said Andres, "if we kick (out) everybody that is feeding America?"

For Barbacoa, immigration reform is about human rights and skin in the game at every level.

"I'm not saying anything that controversial," Miller said. "I just don't want it to be an option for a chef to look the other way."

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Immigration activists in New Orleans accused the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals of stalling Thursday on a ruling on President Barack Obama's proposed immigration executive actions. The activists, who said they would begin a nine-day fast just across the street from the 5thCircuit Court,are working against time.

The longer a decision is held, the less time there is available for the case to make its way to the Supreme Court. If the case doesn't make it there during the current session, it appears unlikely that Obama will be able to act on the proposals before he leaves office in January 2017.

"That's our window to take the decision to the Supreme Court," Sulma Arias, an activist with the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, said of the nine days they will be fasting. "We feel they've had enough time to rule."

The three-judge panel heard arguments July 10 regarding Obama's proposal, which would provide deportation relief to an estimated 5 million undocumented immigrants, including the parents of American citizens who came to the country illegally. The court's website indicates that it tries to issue opinions within 60 days of hearing arguments. Sunday will mark the 100th day.

The White House is reportedly expecting to lose the appeal, chiefly because the court has disagreed with the Obama administration before.

U.S. Deportations Over Time | InsideGov

If a decision is reached soon, the earliest a final decision could be made on the president's immigration overhaul would be next summer. That would give the president enough time to take action on a very small number of cases -- likely just a few hundred thousand could qualify in time.

This means that, ultimately, the president's immigration overhaul could ultimatelybe left mostly in the hands of whoever is the next president.

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Immigration Reform 2015: Is Obama's Undocumented ...

San Antonio, Tex. Drawing a distinction between herself and President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton said on Thursday that if she wins the White House, she would not use mass deportation or separate families while pursuing immigration reform.

The evidence is clear, comprehensive immigration reform, where we bring people out of the shadows, will be good for the economy, [and] will raise wages, said Clinton in a question-and-answer session in San Antonio with the president of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

I will not be breaking up families under deportation, Clinton said. I dont think that the way to do that is to undermine the family structure, and undermine the productivity of people who are (contributing) to our economy.

Clintons appearance at the chamber event marks the fifth such question and answer session with presidential candidates that the head of the group, Javier Palomarez, launched this year.

Her appearance came exactly one week after GOP candidate and frontrunner, Donald Trump, was to have participated in a session with the chamber but abruptly backed out days before.

With the exception of Clintons question-and-answer, all have been held in Washington D.C., where the chamber is headquartered.

Clinton frequently bashed the Republican presidential candidates for what she said was the hostility toward Latinos and immigrants in their rhetoric and proposed policies.

It has just added to the ongoing problem we face [in the country] that it is O.K., still, in American to be condemning some groups of people with this kind of rhetoric, she said, adding that hostile talk encourages some people to act in a way that is prejudiced and hurtful.

Many people criticized Trump recently after a supporter at one of his campaign rallies maligned Muslims, and the candidate failed to take issue with it during the rally. Many people also criticized Republican presidential candidates for not assailing or taking too long to condemn Trump for portraying some Mexican immigrants as drug dealers and rapists when he launched his campaign.

Anyone in a position of leadershipdoes have a responsibility to call people outwhen they say Mexican immigrants are drug dealers and rapists. Somebody needs to say Basta!

Clinton said that as president she would work on reforming parts of immigration from the first day.

She said she would streamline the process for applying for programs that Obama implemented through executive action that would spare some undocumented immigrants from deportation for a few years, and allow them to obtain work permits, drivers licenses and some federal benefits.

Clinton recalled being part of church youth program that involved looking after the children of migrant workers while their parents worked. She recalled seeing the parents return every day in a ramshackle bus.

When those little children saw that bus they started to jump up and down, Clinton said. The parents, as tired as they were, were bending over and scooping them up.

She recalled telling her mother: Theyre just like we are. Theyre just families like we are.

Asked by Palomarez if she would pick Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro the former mayor of San Antonio as vice president, Clinton demurred.

She sang his praises, however, suggesting shed like, at the very least, to have him in her administration.

I think really highly of him, she said, adding that she was thrilled to have received his endorsement shortly before. Im really looking hard at him for anything because thats how good he is.

Clinton added that she would work to make it easier for Latino small business owners to find information about launching ventures and accessing services.

She also praised Latinas for starting businesses at a higher rate than other Americans.

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