Rubio Denounces Partisanship on Immigration An hour before President Obama was to speak to Latino officials on Friday, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida lamented how the immigration issue has become hostage to politics - on both the left and right. "I have seen people take the legitimate concern about illegal immigration and turn it into panic and turn that panic into fear and anger and turn that anger into votes and money," Mr. Rubio said. A conservative Republican who has been mentioned as a possible vice-presidential pick for Mitt Romney, Mr. Rubio said, "I was tempted to come here today and rip open the president." Instead, he offered a blunt discussion of how he learned during his year and a half in Washington how complicated and politically nasty immigration issues have become. During his first year in the Senate, he said, no one wanted to work with him on immigration because so many senators were scared by bruising battles of the past. He said a Republican version of the Dream Act he developed was roundly attacked by Democrats, then the same ideas were hailed once Mr. Obama embraced them last week in an executive action, which would spare young people brought to the country illegally from deportation. "I don't care who gets the credit," Mr. Rubio said. I wasn't looking for a talking point. I wasn't looking to influence the election in November. I was looking to help these kids that I've met. "As long as this issue of immigration is a political ping-pong that each side uses to win election and influence votes," he added, "I'm telling you it won't get solved." Mr. Rubio, a Tea Party favorite elected in 2010 with 55 percent of Florida's Latino vote, showed a level of candor on immigration that went well beyond Mr. Romney's address one day earlier to the same group, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. Mr. Romney offered a more conciliatory tone on immigration than during the Republican primary fight, but few specific policies. He did not mention Mr. Rubio by name and endorsed a much narrower version of his Dream Act - granting legal status to young illegal immigrants who join the military, but not to those seeking higher education. The Democrats" version of the Dream Act, which once had bipartisan support, was defeated in 2010 by a Republican filibuster in the Senate. By then the focus of immigration reform had shifted toward border security and deportations and away from how to deal with millions of illegal immigrants in the country. Mr. Rubio criticized the narrowness of focus on both sides: liberals who wanted a path to amnesty for 11 to 12 million illegal immigrants, as well as conservatives who only talk of controlling the border. Those who view illegal immigration as a "law-and-order issue," he said, neglect that it is also a human issue. "These are real people," he said of illegal immigrants, "people doing what virtually any of us would do if our children were hungry, if their countries were dangerous, if they had no hope for their future." I've talked about what you do about the kids. What about everybody else? Mr. Rubio said. Here's the truth, if we're honest with ourselves: we don't know yet. I know we're not going to round up and deport 12 million people. I know we're not going to grant amnesty to 12 million people, and somewhere between those two ideas is the solution.