Secretary of State Marco Rubio coolly shut down criticisms from liberal Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) during a Senate hearing today.
“You and I served in Congress for 15 years… I have to tell you directly and personally that I regret voting for you for Secretary of State,” Van Hollen railed at the former Senator during a Senate hearing.
“Your regret for voting for me confirms I’m doing a good job,” Rubio testily retorted.
“That’s a flippant statement,” protested Van Hollen, who has made himself into a champion for pro-migration causes, including the return of El Salvadoran illegal migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
Rubio used the hearing to describe President Donald Trump’s migration strategy.
“Our immigration policy should be based on the national interest of the United States — period,” Rubio told the hearing.
If there is a subset of people that are easier to vet, who we have a better understanding of who they are and what they’re going to do when they come here, they’re going to receive preference, no doubt about it. There are a lot of sad stories around the world, millions and millions of people around the world. It’s heartbreaking. We cannot assume [adopt] millions and millions of people around the world. No country can.
So you have to have a process of deciding, who do you prioritize? Who do you allow in? We do it all the time. We do it in our immigration system now under our current laws. Unfortunately, it’s primarily based on family connection and not on what they’re going to contribute to the society from a merit standpoint. That should be changed, but that’ll require statutory changes.
But the bottom line is: This notion that somehow we have to accept anyone who wants to come to the United States is absurd. No country in the world has an immigration policy like that.
Rubio was dragged into immigration politics in 2013 as a supporter of the 2013 amnesty and cheap-labor “Gang of Eight” bill. He walked away from that bill in 2014 and later wrote a book about how migration is used to suck wealth from ordinary Americans for the benefit of wealthy investors.
Since becoming Secretary of State, he has shut down several semi-secret, cheap labor pipelines from South America into American communities.
In his testy exchange with Van Hollen, Rubio added:
First of all, I’m actually very proud of the work we’ve done with USAID, for example. I don’t regret cutting $10 million for male circumcisions in Mozambique. I don’t know how that makes us stronger and more prosperous as a nation … We spent $227,000 for Big Cats YouTube channel from USAID. We spent $14 million for social cohesion in Mali, whatever the hell that means. So I can go on and on. I got the list here, and there’s more and I didn’t even bring the whole list …
We deported gang members — gang members, including the one you had a margarita with [Kilmar Abrego Garcia], and that guy is a human trafficker, and that guy is a gang-banger.
“He can’t make unsubstantiated statements ike that,” shouted Hollen, who had earlier complained that the El Salvador government had put a margherita drink on the table when he met with Abrego Garcia.
“Here’s another point,” Rubio butted in:
There is a division in our government between the federal branch and the judicial branch. No judge and the judicial branch can tell me or the president how to conduct foreign policy. No judge can tell me how I have to outreach to a foreign partner … I have under no obligation to share that with the judiciary branch … they cannot order me to negotiate with a foreign minister or the president of El Salvador … I am under no obligation under our division of powers in this country to share with the judicial branch how I conducted diplomacy of the United States. It would actually be counterproductive.
Rubio slammed Van Hollen’s defense of foreign anti-Israel activists:
The State Department does not have officers in the streets snatching everybody. What I do is revoke visas. It is very simple. A visa is not a right. It is a privilege. People apply for student visas to come into United States and study. And if you tell me that you’re coming to the United States to lead campus crusades …. we will deny you a visa.
We’re going to do more — there are more [visa revocations] coming.
“That is pathetic,” Van Hollen responded.
Watch the entire exchange here:
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