In the Republican debate in Houston on Thursday night, the candidates trailing in the polls lined up to criticize Donald Trump, the frontrunner on his stance – and consistency – on the matter of immigration.
And as in previous debates, the tone of the argument quickly turned nasty.
First, Florida senator Marco Rubio said he would secure the border “before we doing anything on immigration”. He then turned to Trump, who has advocated the building of a wall on the southern border and deporting all 11 million undocumented migrants in the US.
“A lot of these positions that he’s now taking are new to him,” said Rubio, mentioning a 2011 Trump position in favor of a path to citizenship and the fact that Trump criticized the 2012 Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, for talking about “self-deportation”.
Rubio then picked up on a New York Times report that Trump hired foreign workers on immigration visas instead of Americans at a Florida resort.
“As far as the people that I’ve hired,” said Trump, “during the absolute prime season … you could not get help, it’s the up season … everybody agrees with me on that. They were part-time jobs … because you couldn’t get help in that hot, hot section of Florida.”
Then Trump defended his criticism of Mitt Romney: “He should’ve won that election,” he said, referring to 2012. “He ran a terrible campaign, he was a terrible candidate, that’s an election that should’ve been won.”
But Rubio would not let him go: “You did criticize him for using the term ‘self-deportation’,” he said, adding: “You’re the only one on this stage fined for hiring people to work illegally.”
Trump had a comeback: “I’m the only one on this stage who’s hired people.”
But Rubio kept after him, accusing him of hiring workers from Poland.
“I’ve hired tens of thousands of people,” Trump said.
“Many from other countries,” Rubio said.
Ted Cruz also joined the attack, saying he found it funny that Trump pretended he invented the immigration issue. When he, Cruz, was fighting the Gang of Eight immigration reform proposal, the Texas senator said: “Where was Donald? He was firing Dennis Rodman on Celebrity Apprentice.”
In return, Trump hit Cruz for being unpopular.
“Nobody likes you,” he said.
The issue did not go away for Trump, who found himself under repeated attack.
