Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a Republican who is on a talking tour to publicize his proposals for an immigration overhaul, said on Thursday that tighter enforcement at the borders and in workplaces would be central to his plan, which would also offer legal status to millions of illegal immigrants.
In a meeting in New York with reporters and editors of The New York Times, Mr. Rubio said that any broad immigration legislation should create a nationwide exit system to check foreigners out of the country, to confirm that they left before their visas expired. He noted that at least 40 percent of an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country came on legal visas but then overstayed.
Mr. Rubio said he would also insist on a nationwide program for employers to verify the legal authorization of new workers, although he did not specify whether he would favor an expansion of an existing federal electronic worker verification program or seek to create a new one.
Mr. Rubio, 41, the conservative son of blue-collar Cuban exiles who won his Senate seat in 2010 with support from the Tea Party, has been shaking up the Republican Party’s immigration politics with his proposals to offer legal status and eventually American citizenship to immigrants here illegally. Since the November elections, many Republican leaders have said the party should find an alternative to the policy of “self-deportation” for illegal immigrants, which turned many Latino voters away from the party’s presidential candidate, Mitt Romney.
On Monday, Mr. Romney’s running mate, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, shifted to Mr. Rubio’s approach, endorsing the senator’s principles and saying the two would work together on immigration legislation. On Wednesday, Bill O’Reilly, the conservative media personality, added his endorsement, telling Mr. Rubio he liked his program.
“I think it’s fair,” Mr. O’Reilly said, in a notable change for a commentator who has been fiercely critical of illegal immigration. Since Mr. Rubio started to unveil his principles last Friday, they have also been praised by Grover Norquist, the conservative antitax crusader. He also drew support from some longtime advocates for broad legalization legislation.
One of them, Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, called Mr. Rubio’s proposals “a very welcome and courageous statement from someone who was elected with Tea Party credentials.”
Mr. Rubio, saying immigration would be a top priority for him this year, said he was currently laying out principles and gathering support for them. As a tactical matter, Mr. Rubio is not delving too deeply into the details at this stage.
His plan would give a temporary “nonimmigrant visa” to illegal immigrants, which would allow them to remain and work in the United States. They would have to wait a “significant but reasonable” period of time before they could apply to become legal permanent residents, going to the back of the line in the existing system. Once they became residents, they could go on like other legal immigrants to naturalize as citizens.
“There are millions of people who have applied to enter this country legally,” Mr. Rubio said. “Our message to them cannot be: you should have come illegally because it’s faster and cheaper.”
He acknowledged that major pieces of his plan remain to be worked out. According to current federal visa rosters, most Mexican-born immigrants applying to become permanent residents now face a wait of at least 17 years to receive their document — known as a green card — even if they followed the rules and were approved. Mr. Rubio’s proposal could add seven million more Mexican immigrants to those backlogs. The path to citizenship he proposes for illegal immigrants could be several decades long.
“I don’t have a solution for that question right now,” Mr. Rubio said. He said he would seek to relieve backlogs by speeding up green cards for immigrants already in the legal line, not by creating special pathways for illegal immigrants.
Mr. Rubio’s principles did not sound very different from outlines for an overhaul that President Obama has offered. And the senator, whose star is rising rapidly in his party, chose not to hammer on his differences with the White House. Instead, he said he was open to negotiating because he believed the timing was right to change a failing immigration system. “We just have to get this thing done for once and for all,” Mr. Rubio said.
