Unfortunately for Rubio, the Senate Judiciary Committee made his immigration bill weaker, not stronger, on border security. Now as it moves to the Senate floor, Rubio has hatched another gimmick to make his bill sound tougher: He’ll write his own border security plan. “It’s very simple. If we can come up with a plan that people have confidence in for the border, I believe we’ll have immigration reform,” Rubio recently told Fox News. “If we cannot, we will not, and we should not. I don’t think it will pass without those measures in there. I just don’t.”

But this solution is just as worthless as Rubio’s Border Commission was. Once Congress writes a plan, there is nothing in the bill that guarantees President Obama’s DHSwill actually implement it. Conservatives, like Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, introduced amendments that would make the legalization of illegal immigrants contingent on the actual implementation of border security. But the pro-amnesty Republicans and their Democratic allies on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted down all of those amendments. Democrats simply will not allow any changes to the bill that alter its fundamental amnesty-now-for-enforcement-later framework.

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said he is confident of getting the 60 votes he needs to pass Rubio’s immigration bill in the Senate. And he’s probably right. The real target of Rubio’s new security sales job is the House. And it is unclear how much, if any, headway he is making.