When protests erupted over the looming threat of deportation faced by Colombian-born high school valedictorian Daniela Pelaez, Florida Senator Marco Rubio didn’t just stand up for her – he met with her personally in Washington.

But that doesn’t mean the Tea Party-backed senator has changed his position on the DREAM Act.
Rubio reiterated his opposition to the legislative proposal Wednesday after meeting with Pelaez, calling it “the wrong way to do the right thing,” in a statement emailed to Fox News Latino.

“Instead, my hope is to come up with a bi-partisan solution to this problem. One that does not reward or encourage illegal immigration by granting amnesty, but helps accommodate talented young people like Daniela, who find themselves undocumented through no fault of their own,” Rubio said.

Senator Rubio has yet to outline what such a reform might look like.

“It’s not clear to me what the senator means,” Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, an expert on immigration policy at New York University, said in a telephone interview. “This is not rocket science, there aren’t too many factors here at work. Either you’re going to pursue a DREAM Act-like solution, or you’re going to pursue comprehensive immigration reform or you’re going to let the status quo win the day.”

The DREAM Act is a consensus issue for Latinos. Ninety percent of likely Latino voters support the proposal, according to a Fox News Latino national poll released Monday.

Read the full story at Fox News Latino