Sen. Marco Rubio is switching sides and showing more support for conservative views of immigration after losing political standing with his support for immigration, The Associated Press reported.

The 2016 presidential candidate is aligning his views more with the voters who would be responsible for his future and abandoning sweeping reform on immigration and the bill he helped write.

Last month, he said the Obama administration should not attempt to save the migrant children who had entered illegally from deportation.

Instead, he said Congress should first "make real progress on stemming the tide of illegal immigration."

This has drawn criticism that with his eye on the White House, he has essentially flip-flopped on his stance.

But his aides say he has always put border security at the top of the list.

"At the end of the day border security is an obligation of the federal government no matter what your illegal immigration problem may be," Rubio told Politico in July 2013. "Even if you didn't have a single illegal immigrant you'd still have to have effective border security because it goes down to your sovereignty. So I have no problem with doing border security. That alone won't solve our immigration problem, however."

He has reportedly changed his stance since earlier in 2013 when he supported sweeping reform that targeted border security and a way to citizenship for many of the 11.5 million undocumented immigrants in the country.

His 2016 rivals, Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky, voted against his bill, and Rubio was the only GOP candidate who helped write the immigration bill.

The immigration topic is a strong one among early voting states such as South Carolina and Kentucky, where Rubio has begun visiting.

"The votes aren't there," Rubio said about the immigration bill. "You're going to have to deal with the border first. Otherwise we're going to continue to beat our head against a wall here for another decade without any changes or any progress being made."

In a country with a continuously increasing Hispanic population, which has yet to elect a Latino leader, Rubio, a Cuban-American, has to face the dilemma of understanding the views of the Latino community as well as the general public in the country.

After having spent time advocating for citizenship, he said that he does not think illegal immigrants have a right to gain citizenship that way, but he understands their plight.

While he did advocate for citizenship, his recent change in tone and support may not sit well with Hispanic voters.