With just days to go before the first debate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) is looking to clarify his position on immigration and border security.
The presidential candidate posted his plans for securing our national border Monday morning on Medium and sought to show that he’s not in favor of a blanket amnesty and that illegal immigrants will have to pay their way to receive legalization.
“We [Bush and his co-writer Clint Bolick] emphasized that finding a practical solution to the status of the people who are here illegally today is a nonstarter if our borders are not secure against future illegal immigration,” Bush wrote.
The former governor laid out his plan on how illegal aliens could earn legal rights if he became president.
“I believe that for those already in the country, we need to put in place a rigorous path that requires individuals to pass a thorough criminal background check, pay fines, pay taxes, learn English, obtain a provisional work permit and work, not receive federal government assistance, and over an extended period of time earn legal status,” he continued. “But any plan to address the status of illegal immigrants must be accompanied by a robust strategy to improve border security.”
Many of those ideas come from the Schumer/Rubio bill proposed in the Senate in 2013, which was opposed by many conservatives and Tea Party groups.
In the rest of Bush’s post, he breaks down how he plans on securing the border. This includes increasing the number and flexibility of border patrol agents, using new technology to survey the border, and improving access to federal lands.
These plans are not likely to garner any support from either the conservative wing of the Republican party or Hispanic voters. To nearly everyone’s surprise, Hispanics support Donald Trump over Bush against Hillary Clinton, according to Public Policy Polling.
