Posted on 09/22/2015 8:34:59 AM PDT by HomerBohn
An invigorated Jeb Bush defied his party’s lurch to the right over immigration on Monday with a passionate speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, in which he called for a path to legal citizenship for undocumented migrants.
Fresh from a presidential debate that saw him criticized for speaking Spanish, lacking energy and having a Mexican wife, the former Florida governor took the jibes from Donald Trump and appeared to feed off them before an audience of business leaders in Houston.
“Earned legal status is the dignified way, the practical way, the American way of solving the problem of 12 million immigrants,” he said.
“If you embrace a set of shared values, it shouldn’t matter if you have a Z at the end of your name or your accent might be different,” he added.
“There are voices in my party that don’t agree with any of this. The louder voices … I believe that this country is the most extraordinary on the face of the earth, we just have to start acting like it again.”
Though he has long been a supporter of immigration reform, Bush, like his Florida rival Senator Marco Rubio, had been more muted in recent months as the issue appeared to place them on the fringes of the Republican primary race.
But the increasingly shrill attacks on immigration from Trump, together with comments from Ben Carson questioning the role of Muslims in American life, appear to have given Bush a newfound lease of life as the anti-xenophobic voice of his party.
He accused rivals of playing “the game of striking fear in people’s hearts” and singled out Trump for questioning his use of Spanish during a recent school visit.
“Donald Trump apparently said I should not speak Spanish to them for some odd reason,” said Bush, who began and ended Monday’s speech in Spanish. “They spoke in Spanish to me and I spoke in Spanish to them.
“They all speak English, by the way, in case you are worried: they are bilingual. They are going to be extraordinarily competitive.”
The personal nature of the attacks on Bush’s wife, Columba, who Trump accused of skewing his perspective on immigration, appears to have stirred a more emotional side of his often policy-heavy stump speech.
“The notion that some how she’s not [patriotic],” he said. “It’s laughable. It’s so sad that people don’t have any sense of what the immigration experience is about.
“That’s the American way. It’s not when we divide people and call people idiots.”
“I am tired of how we try to figure out ways to break ourselves up in our disparate parts,” added Bush, as he held his hands out wide, rather than wagging his finger.
(Watch Jeb's video at link)
As with many such events, Bush was briefly heckled by immigration campaigners at the outset of the event. He silenced them by agreeing with many of their demands.
“Here’s what I believe. I believe we need immigration reform. I believe Dream Act kids should have a path to citizenship,” said Bush over the noise of the hecklers.
“I have been consistently for the Dream Act kids to get a path to citizenship and I will continue to be for it irrespective of what the political ramifications of that are.”
Whether the more open embrace of immigration reform can help Bush close his polling deficit in the Republican primary remains to be seen, but he insisted it was a policy compatible with his other campaign pledges on economic growth, taxation and education.
“Immigration reform ought to be part of a strategy for high, sustained economic growth where more people have a chance of earned success,” said Bush.
“This apparently is somewhat out of the mainstream, temporarily, in my party, but it isn’t really: a great of majority of Republicans believe in immigration reform.
“Yeah, we have to secure the border, of course we do … but we don’t need to build a wall. We don’t need to deport every person that is in the country that would cost hundreds of billions of dollars. That’s not a practical conservative plan.”
Illegal immigration is an “act of love” for their families. My vote for anyone but Bush in the primaries and then anyone but Bush in the general election is an act of love for my country. There is no situation in which I would vote for Jeb.
“I have been consistently for the Dream Act kids to get a path to citizenship and I will continue to be for it irrespective of what the political ramifications of that are.”
“WELL BYE”!
Trump should offer him Ambassador to Mexico in his administration.
“Earned legal status is the dignified way, the practical way, the American way of solving the problem of 12 million immigrants,” he said. “
Except there is about 40 million of them, Yeb.
How about the “dignity” of the taxpaying middle class that have to support these parasites while seeing their standard of living crash and burn.
...thus guaranteeing that he’ll have an enormous number of the GOP base stay home on election day. They still have not figured out what a large number of our working population wants this to stop.
I will pop champagne when this complete a hole drops out of the race. Go to Mexico and stay there Yeb!
So Yeb can be anti-xenophobic and anti-legal at the same time. That's a winnah!
Forty million plus at least that many more through chain immigration. It will be endless.
Jeb should take the opportunity to run as a RAT, before ole Joe jumps in.
F Bush.
Illegal immigration is an act of war against everyone who is NOT an illegal immigrant. What about OUR families who are being deprived of our hard earned income to pay for this criminal activity. Bush should be tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail.
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Jeb should move to Mexico, and leave the US alone.
Simple question, yet it seems nobody has EVER asked it - “How do we know if these ‘undocumented immigrants’ even WANT to become full American citizens, adopting ALL the American ideal, foreswearing their former allegiance or allegiances, and unreservedly obeying the laws and statutes of the United States and the various states?”
To come here, then to DEMAND that all the law, language, and customs of the former country be kept, is to invite chaos. The hyphenation of the term “American” does not, cannot be applied to loyalties. Your heritage or genetic makeup may be of another land and another way, but upon becoming “US Citizen”, that designation trumps all others.
He's not doing himself, the GOPe, or the CofC cheap labor crowd any good with his love of all things mexico rhetoric.
All he is doing is alienating US voters, and pandering to a group that would go to prison for voting in a federal election.
If this a-hole does manage to get elected, the states should just flip the feds the bird, expel the illegals, and declare war on mexico to recuperate their costs.
Jeb is so out of touch it’s not even funny.
Drop out now Jebito Bushario. Let your “donors” spend their money on House and Senate races instead. Although with the rinos they support it might not help us much...but what the heck?
You're being silly. They want to become American citizens, so they can vote for free stuff provided to them by a gargantuan government (one that they elect to take that "free stuff" from productive Americans).
Why isn’t Hebbie running for dog catcher in Mexico?
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