Tea Parties darling and GOP savior Marco Rubio frequently sounds just like a Democrat politician when discussing immigration.

That includes smearing the majority of Republicans, those who oppose illegal immigration and amnesty.

From a report about his speech a Politico event today (link):

Rubio said that the [GOP] needs to change the way it talks about immigrants.

"We're not talking about plagues of locusts, we're talking about people," he said.

"Unfortunately I think the Republican Party for many years allowed itself to be positioned as the anti-illegal immigration party," said Rubio. "What we really need to be is the pro-legal immigration party," he said.

1. It's extremely difficult to find any Republican leader referring to immigrants or illegal aliens in such negative terms. While leftwingers like ThinkProgress delight in taking comments out of context (such as those of Steve King), that doesn't make them true.

Instead of taking on ThinkProgress and other leftwing supporters of illegal immigration, Rubio joins with them in spirit and smears the GOP.

Now, certainly, some in the GOP base do use dehumanizing terms to refer to illegal aliens, but they don't have any power. The solution for that is to gently steer them onto the right path, not to act like far-left amnesty supporters.

2. If the GOP can't openly and loudly oppose illegal activity, what use are they? If they're going to be as corrupt as the Democratic Party, why should anyone who supports our laws and opposes amnesty support the GOP?

3. Rubio is further hurting the GOP (as he's already done) by acting like the far-left rather than using the immigration issue to discredit Democrat leaders. Someone like Dick Durbin should be out of a job for promoting the anti-American DREAM Act. Rubio would not just give Durbin and others like him a pass, he'd help them with their goals.

4. Rubio suggests we treat immigrants and illegal aliens as people, yet he's not intellectually honest enough to do that himself: see people vs workers.

UPDATE: Shortly after post time, Fox News Latino helped illustrate my first point by offering 'Marco Rubio: Illegal Immigration not "Plague of Locust"' (link) which starts like so:

Piggybacking off his speech on Tuesday night, Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) reiterated his vision for the future of the Republican party on Wednesday which includes better immigration rhetoric that doesn't compare the issue to a "plague of locust."

"When you talk about illegal immigration, you're not talking about plague of locust, you're talking about people," Rubio said at POLITICO's Playbook Breakfast regarding the need for a change in the party's immigration rhetoric.

The subtext - obvious to Fox News Latino if not Rubio himself - is that the bulk of the GOP have ill will towards at least illegal aliens and perhaps even immigrants in general. Rubio's supporters need to remind him that he should oppose Dolores Huerta, not imply the same things as her.