Former President George W. Bush is due to call immigration “a blessing and a strength” during a naturalization ceremony for new U.S. citizens on Monday.
“Generations of new arrivals [have] left their mark on our national character, in traits that friends abroad still recognize as distinctly American: our optimism, our independence and openness to the new, our willingness to strive and to risk, our sense of life as an adventure, dignified by personal freedom and personal responsibility.
Such qualities don’t come out of nowhere. A spirit of self-reliance runs deep in our immigrant heritage, along with the humility and kindness to look at someone less fortunate and see yourself,” Bush will say, according to Politico.
“The great yearning of so many to live in our country presents a significant challenge. America’s elected representatives have a duty to regulate who comes in and when. In meeting this responsibility, it helps to remember that America’s immigrant history made us who we are. Amid all the complications of policy, may we never forget that immigration is a blessing and a strength.”
Bush’s comments are likely to be interpreted as at odds with President Trump’s rhetoric on illegal immigration, especially after he vetoed a bipartisan resolution last week that nullified his declaration of a national emergency to pay for a wall at the southern border.
Fifty-one immigrants are taking part in Monday’s naturalization ceremony at the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas, according to the center’s website.
A brother of the former president, ex-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, last week urged a Republican candidate to challenge Trump for the 2020 GOP nomination because the party “ought to be given a choice.”
“It’s hard to beat a sitting president,” he said. “But to have a conversation about what it is to be a conservative I think is important.”
