Did former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush mislead New Hampshire voters about the different positions he has taken on illegal immigration?
In little noticed comments on Saturday afternoon in New Hampshire, Bush argued that his position on immigration and opposition to a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants has not changed. But his public comments indicate the opposite appears true.
“Immigration — I’m the one, this is a unique situation. I’ve had the same view for the last four years,” Bush said at a Windham town hall on Saturday. “I wrote a book about it called Immigration Wars. It’s not what you call a bestseller. You can buy it for a buck ninety-nine on Amazon, I encourage you to do it. And chapter one lays out exactly what I thought then and what I think now, which is we need to secure the border and we need to deal with people that are here illegally in a way that does not give them a path to citizenship.”
But in 2012 — three years ago — Bush told Charlie Rose he would support a “path to citizenship” for illegal immigrants.
“Either a path to citizenship, which I would support and that does put me probably out of the mainstream of most conservatives, or a path to legalization, a path to residency of some kind, which now hopefully will become — I would accept that in a heartbeat as well if that`s the path to get us to where we need to be which is on a positive basis using immigration to create sustained growth,” Bush said.
The Bush campaign did not immediately respond to request for comment on the governor’s differing stances. His decision to change his position and tone on immigration appears to coincide with GOP voters growing anger at President Obama’s executive actions on immigration and the 2014 crisis at the southern border where thousands of Central Americans came flooding into the United States.
Bush, who ranks fourth in the Washington Examiner‘s newest GOP presidential power rankings, trails four Republican presidential candidates in New Hampshire, including Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Chris Christie, according to RealClearPolitics’ average of Granite State polls.
