Ever since a right-wing backlash blew up the bipartisan immigration bill that Sen. Marco Rubio helped champion in 2013, the ambitious Republican has struggled to find his political footing on the issue. For two years, he has hemmed and hawed; ducked and dodged; retracted, retreated from, and repeatedly revised his immigration rhetoric in a ploy to appease conservative activists without fully forsaking his position. These days, when the subject comes up in town hall meetings or TV interviews, the silver-tongued senator — now officially running for the GOP presidential nomination — is often reduced to reciting a few stilted talking points, and then angling to change the subject.

But there is one setting where Rubio frequently and unabashedly touts his immigration record to great effect: closed-door meetings with the GOP’s elite, high-dollar donors.

According to a half-dozen Republican fundraisers and contributors who have been courted by the Rubio camp, the candidate’s aggressive advocacy for the Senate’s 2013 immigration bill has proved to be a substantial draw within the GOP money crowd — and his campaign has shown little hesitation about cashing in. Even as Rubio labors to publicly distance himself from the legislation so loathed by conservative primary voters, he and his aides have privately highlighted this line in his resume when soliciting support from the deep-pocketed donors in the party’s more moderate business wing.

Norman Braman, the 82-year-old auto tycoon who has reportedly pledged to spend as much as $10 million to get Rubio elected, told BuzzFeed News that he and the candidate have bonded over immigration. Not only do they agree on the policy specifics, but at a deeper level the issue is a personal one for both of them.

Read the article “Marco Rubio Rakes In Donor Money By Touting Immigration Record — Behind Closed Doors” on buzzfeed.com.