Border security is important to President Donald Trump, but he's never said he wanted to round up and deport "Dreamers," Sen. Marco Rubio said Thursday.
"He has expressed his desire to do something with them differently than perhaps what some people perceived," the Florida Republican told CNN's "New Day," before meeting with Trump and first lady Melania Trump to tour areas in his state that were hit hard by Hurricane Irma last weekend.
Earlier this month, Trump announced that he would be ending the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, but only after giving Congress six months to determine if the program should be written into law.
Wednesday night, Trump met with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer at the White House, after which there were some differences in reports that they'd reached an agreement on DACA.
Rubio told CNN he was not at the meeting, but as for himself, he always wanted to "deal with this issue and help young people and deal with it in a responsible way."
"The details of it are important," Rubio said. "A couple of weeks ago when the decision was made, it would be important what the president laid out what he would sign and wouldn't, and it was a guidance. It's an issue I hope we will deal with and I believe we can deal with, and the president is ready to announce the parameters of what he's willing to work with. That's going to help in achieve that."
Trump has come under fire from both sides of the decision, including from critics among his base that say if the DACA provisions are allowed to stay, that would be tantamount to allowing amnesty for the young people brought illegally into the United States.
"The president has consistently said — I have heard him say it a number of times and he said it was an issue he would like to fix and fix in the right way," Rubio said. "Again, I have always operated under the assumption that's what they wanted to do, and I think the reasons why we got the six-month period is to give Congress the opportunity to work to fix it. He could have ended it, and slammed the door shut and that's not what they wanted to do."
Rubio also discussed the situation in Florida following Irma, noting that there are long-term and short-term needs that must be met.
"The short-term needs are reimbursing local governments for what they are doing, and getting individualized assistance and small business loans and a lot of small family-owned businesses," Rubio said. "It wiped them out, and that assistance is not overly controversial. Where we are going to get into a problem is if we use this long term for a project, but it is something that should be part of the regular budget and not the emergency funding."