Jeb Bush is making clear he is all in on a path to legalized status for illegal immigrants, arguing that other potential candidates are “preying on people’s fears” and that the answer is not to deport everyone:
WASHINGTON TIMES – Speaking in the early presidential state of South Carolina Tuesday, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush defended his views on immigration and said that if people want to consider running for office they need to “stop preying on people’s fears” and “stop dividing us.”
“I have not seen, I don’t know if you’ve seen, a plan that says ‘we’re gonna deport everybody,’” Mr. Bush said at a breakfast event in Greenville Tuesday morning, kicking off a multi-day swing through the state. “If you have, please pass it on. I’d love to see it. [email protected] is my email address if you got a plan. I haven’t seen one.
“The cost of that would be enormous, the time would be enormous, the disruption would be enormous,” he continued. “A better plan would be to say, allow people a path to legalized status. Let them earn legalized status — paying fines, working, not receiving government assistance. Learning English. And over a period of time, you earn legalized status where you come out from the shadows … but you’re not cutting in the line with people that have been patiently waiting to try to come in legally.”
Mr. Bush, a potential 2016 GOP presidential candidate, has been critical of President Obama’s executive actions providing millions of illegal immigrants with a path to temporary legal status. He said during a recent stop in New Hampshire that Congress should be encouraged to pass a budget that prioritizes spending more money on the border.
He said Tuesday that another part of an immigration plan entails shared values.
“It doesn’t matter where you start, where you came from — if you embrace those values, you learn English, you have a respect for our history and our heritage, you’re as American as anybody else,” he said.
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