Jeb Bush 2016: 5 Immigration Quotes That Explain (Most) Of The Candidate’s Views

Jeb Bush has already set himself apart from the rest of his rivals in the Republican presidential primary race with a well-known name and record fundraising. But how has he set himself apart on the issues? So far, immigration seems to be his biggest break. Unlike Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), Bush is not calling for America to “secure the border first.” Unlike Sen. Ted Cruz, Bush believes that many undocumented immigrants should be able to apply for citizenship, not permanently relegated to an underclass of workers and residents who can’t vote. The quotes below will give you an idea why Jeb Bush is a different Republican candidate.

Some of Bush’s positions haven’t made headlines in the press recently, and are more typical of his Republican colleagues. For example, just like Marco Rubio, Bush wants to reduce family-based immigration and increased “skill-based” immigration. He laid out his recommendations in the 2013 book Immigration Wars, which he co-authored. Specifically, he’d eliminate existing rules that help unite families by allowing immigrants to more easily bring their parents and adult children to the U.S., while also raising the amount of merit-based worker visas. Here are some of the quotes representative of the immigration views that Bush has been throwing around recently. At the end of this article, we’ll detail a few views that he’s kept out of his speeches.

“I just think you’re wrong on immigration, to be honest with you,” Bush recently told a conservative interviewer at the National Review.

While some Republican presidential hopefuls are tip-toeing around the immigration issue, Jeb Bush isn’t shy about his support for bringing undocumented immigrants “out of the shadows” and into the mainstream.

“This country does not do well when people lurk in the shadows," he said at the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. "This country does spectacularly well when everybody can pursue their God-given abilities.”

He’s particularly opposed to punishing Dreamers, children who were brought to the U.S. by their parents, without papers.

"I've never felt like the sins of the parents should be ascribed to the children, you know," Bush said in 2013. "If your children always have to pay the price for adults decisions they make — how fair is that? For people who have no country to go back to — which are many of the Dreamers — it's ridiculous to think that there shouldn't be some accelerated path to citizenship."

You won’t find Bush using the term “illegals” or calling undocumented immigrants “criminals.” Unlike many on his side of the aisle, he uses more nuanced terminology to talk about immigrants and immigration. He also appears to have more compassion towards immigrants. His wife is a Mexican immigrant, and he describes their children as bilingual and bicultural. In 2014 he described economic immigration as an “act of love.”

"Yes, they broke the law, but it's not a felony. It's an act of love, it's an act of commitment to your family," Bush told Fox News host Shannon Bream. "I honestly think that is a different kind of crime, that there should be a price paid, but it shouldn't rile people up that people are actually coming to this country to provide for their families," he said.

Instead of “securing the border first,” Bush is urging Republicans to take the reigns on comprehensive immigration reform. In recent comments to the National Review, he implied that an obstructionist Republican congress had hurt the party. The longer the GOP holds out on the immigration issue, he says, the longer Democrats will benefit from it politically.

“By doing nothing, you have two things that happen, at least in the age of Obama,” he told National Review. “You have a president who uses this ... as a wedge issue, and we always lose. ‪“Delaying this is what [Obama] wants,” Bush added. “He doesn’t want immigration reform.”

While Bush is seen as the most pro-immigrant candidate on the Republican side, Latino activists are likely to take aim at some proposals laid out in Immigration Wars. In addition to scaling back family immigration, Bush wants to increase local law enforcement’s role in enforcing immigration policies. In the past, deputizing local police as immigration agents has led to controversial police practices including racial profiling. Bush has also proposed fingerprinting all foreign visitors, a move that could add embarrassment to an immigration that already infuriates tourists. Lastly, Bush has argued for “flexibility” in requiring states to pay for federally required services for undocumented immigrants such as emergency room treatment for undocumented immigrants.