Rubio: House Republicans 'deserve' to dictate immigration reform after government shutdown

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) on Sunday said that President Barack Obama must cave to House Republicans' demands on immigration reform because he had "undermined" the effort by refusing to defund his signature health care reform law.

During an interview with Fox News, Rubio reasoned that since the Obama administration had delayed parts of the Affordable Care Act, it could also decide to selectively enforce parts of any new immigration reform law.

"Certainly, the president has undermined this effort because the way he's behaved over the last three weeks [during the government shutdown]," he explained to Fox News host Chris Wallace.

But even after House Republicans shut the government down in an attempt to defund the Affordable Care Act and took the country to the brink of default by threatening to raise the debt limit, Rubio argued that those same lawmakers might have the best immigration reform solution.

"This notion that they're going to get into a room and negotiate a deal with the president on immigration is much more difficult for two reasons," he explained. "Number one, because the way the president has behaved towards his opponents over the last three weeks as well as the White House and the things that they've said and done. And number two, because what I have outlined to you... So, I certainly think that immigration reform is a lot harder to achieve today than it was just three weeks ago because of what's happened here."

"Again, I think the House deserves the time and space to have its own ideas on how they want to move forward on this, let's see what they come up with. It could very well be much better than what than the Senate has done so far."

Watch the video below from Fox News' Fox News Sunday, recorded Oct. 20, 2013.

(h/t: Think Progress)