Unlike Hispanic voters elsewhere in the country, Florida Hispanics — largely Puerto Ricans, who are American citizens, and Cuban-Americans, with special immigration privileges — are less concerned with the politics of immigration. But the topic has nevertheless dominated the primary conversation.

On Friday, Gingrich noted the failures of previous Republican and Democratic administrations in passing immigration legislation. “I don’t believe you can pass a comprehensive bill,” he said, adding that it would face “too many enemies.”

Gingrich and Romney disagreed on what to do with the approximately 11 million people who are in the United States illegally. Gingrich said “young, unattached” undocumented immigrants would go back to their countries and apply for a guest-worker visa under his proposal. His plan would call for the U.S. to grant legal status — but not citizenship — to families who have been in the country for decades.

Romney, on the other hand, said all undocumented immigrants should be granted temporary, legal status and then forced to return to their countries to apply for citizenship. “We’re not going to go out and round people in buses and send them home,” he said.

Yet neither Gingrich’s nor Romney’s rhetoric was met with the warmth Rubio received when he gave the first immigration speech of the day.

Rubio, who has not backed anyone in the race, said the U.S. cannot legalize 11 million people, but seemed to fall closer to Gingrich’s position.

“It’s not realistic to expect that you’re going to deport 11 million people,” he acknowledged. He also suggested the U.S. must “accommodate” young people who came to the country illegally as children, though Rubio did not elaborate on specifics.

Rubio accused both parties of playing politics with immigration to try to appeal to Hispanics.

“We must admit that there are those among us who have used rhetoric that is harsh and intolerable, inexcusable,” Rubio said. “And we must admit — myself included — that sometimes we’ve been too slow in condemning that language for what it is.”

Rubio got choked up speaking about his grandfather. He made self-deprecating jokes. He read a poem engraved inside the Statue of Liberty.

And when a couple of young protesters interrupted his speech, asking Rubio why he isn’t helping them — “You’re an immigrant yourself!” they yelled — Rubio urged security to let them stay.

“I’m not who they think I am,” he said, though the young men were escorted out of the room anyway. Later, he asked audience members to put themselves in the shoes of people in other countries looking for a better life for their children.

“There is no fence high enough, there is no ocean wide enough that most of us would not cross to provide for them what they do not have,” he said.

Miami Herald staff writer Marc Caputo contributed to this report.