Columbia, South Carolina (CNN)Sen. Marco Rubio was repeatedly heckled over his immigration platform Saturday while speaking here at a forum on poverty, with protesters suggesting that the Cuban-American senator does not represent the Hispanic community.
Soon after Rubio began speaking at the Kemp Forum on Expanding Opportunity, five separate, small groups of protesters stood up to interrupt the Florida senator, shouting chants such as "undocumented and unafraid."
"Rubio does not represent the Hispanic community. He wants to deport our families," one person yelled as security led him out. Two other protesters held up signs that read, "Rubio wants to deport me!"
The protests marked the first time Rubio has been interrupted in such a fashion on the campaign trail. None of the other candidates who appeared at the forum -- including Ohio Gov. John Kasich, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie -- were interrupted.
Rubio, appearing onstage with Kasich, House Speaker Paul Ryan and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, kept calm as security removed the protesters. But the Florida senator refused to back down on the issue.
"We're going to enforce our immigration laws, guys," he said, to huge applause from the Republican audience, which had packed a convention center's auditorium to standing room-only.
But as the protesters continued to stand up and shout, the candidates were forced to acknowledge them.
Kasich noted that the protesters had a right to speak, and, along with Rubio, took a thinly-veiled swipe at GOP front-runner Donald Trump, whose rallies are consistently the target of protesters.
"I thought about handling them the way another candidate does, but I thought I'd wait. It's not my ..." Rubio trailed off, to applause.
Kasich then referred to an incident at a Trump rally Friday night, in which a Muslim woman, standing in silent protest, was removed from the event and shouted at along the way.
"I saw a crowd booing this woman who was being escorted. That's not the spirit of Jack Kemp. I mean, we are people that can tolerate differences," the Ohio governor said.
Autoplaying video (don't you HATE those damned things?) at link:
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/09/politics/marco-rubio-immigration-protesters-jack-kemp-poverty-forum/index.html
