Free Republic

Jeb Bush told Telemundo he wants a pathway to legal status for all 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. The former Florida governor granted his first Spanish-language interview as a presidential candidate to Telemundo Monday evening. In the interview, he talked about his immigration policies, his thoughts on Donald Trump and Cuba, and his home life and family. "First, coming here legally has to be easier than coming here illegally," he said. "So there needs to be an agreement with the border ... for the 11 million people (who are here illegally), they must come out of the...

President Bush's son, Jeb, is looking for a maid who's a legal U.S. resident. A maid who had worked at Bush's Miami home for three years was deported back to her native Honduras last week. Bush was out jogging when immigration agents showed up so his wife, Columba, had to deal with them. "She indicated, `Yes, she works here,' brought the lady out, and the two agents showed her the deportation order,said Richard Smith, director of the INS's Miami office."

Jeb Bush implored his Republican presidential rivals Monday to reject the "crazy message of hate" that he sees at play in the campaign and cast himself as a "committed conservative," but not an "angry" one, in remarks rooted in Donald Trump's inflammatory rhetoric and the backlash that followed. As conservatives, he said in a speech to pastors, "if we act with our heart, people will rise." Afterward, Bush gave his call for political civility a harder edge in a raucous rally where he urged other GOP contenders to quit scolding each other. "We have to campaign with joy in our...

Presidential contender and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush will be courting a critical group of voters Monday afternoon – the fast growing community of Latinos in Central Florida, an area where the Republican last campaigned in 2002. Hundreds of thousands of Latinos, mainly Puerto Ricans, have settled in Central Florida in the years since Bush last served as governor. They include many Puerto Ricans who have fled the island’s economic woes and diminishing opportunities.

Jeb Bush told MSNBC's Jose Diaz-Balart that he was "herido," Spanish for "hurt," by Donald Trump's comments about undocumented Mexican immigrants during an interview conducted entirely in Spanish on Monday. "I was hurt hearing somebody speaking in such a vulgar fashion. This makes solving this problem much more difficult," Bush said, according to a translator. "When we have politicians like that we cannot progress." "In a political sense it was bad, and it creates an environment that is worse," he added.

A federal judge in California has ruled that hundreds of illegal immigrant women and children in U.S. holding facilities should be released, another apparent setback for President Obama’s immigration policy, according to The Los Angeles Times. U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee said Friday that the conditions in which the detainees are being held are “deplorable” and violate parts of an 18-year-old court settlement that put restrictions on the detention of migrant children. The ruling also raises questions about what the administration will do with the estimated 1,700 parents and children at three detention facilities, two in Texas and one in...

People who entered the United States illegally may be called "undocumented" in politically correct circles, but what is all too well documented is the utter irresponsibility of both political parties in dealing with immigration issues. Both Democratic and Republican administrations have left the border with Mexico porous for years — porous not just for Mexicans but for anybody else, including terrorists from the Middle East. Two very different issues have gotten jumbled together in the political stew called "comprehensive immigration reform." The first and most fundamental issue is whether we are going to have an immigration policy at all. The...

Kicking off an afternoon swing through Central Florida, Jeb Bush told a group of pastors that Christian businesses should not be “compelled” to participate in gay weddings and that he supports statehood for Puerto Rico and “legal status” — but not citizenship — for millions of immigrants who are now in the U.S. illegally. On immigration reform, Bush said, “We need to have a path to legal status for the 11 million people here…What else would you do?” He added: “The idea of self-deportation or the idea of rounding people up is not an American value.” Bush said legal status...

Former Maryland governor and current contender for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination Martin O'Malley vowed to extend the rights of US citizenship to every alien in the country on day one of his administration. “According to our Constitution, all men are created equal,” O'Malley maintained. “It is a crime against humanity for us to treat people unequally based on their place of birth. Humans have the right to live wherever they want. Our government has the obligation to ensure that every human who chooses to live in America receives everything to which he or she is entitled.” As O'Malley sees...

This should answer the question of why Donald Trump resonates with the Republican base. Despite having criticized Mitt Romney for being too hardline on immigration in 2012, Trump has until very recently embraced the hardline positions — and those turn out to be very popular among GOP voters. A new poll from CNN shows that normalizing the illegals who have been living here gets 55% support from the general public, but 64% of Republicans prefer deportation: The poll also finds Trump’s positions on immigration are at odds with those of most Americans, but may be providing him a boost...

Disappointing, but not surprising. The depressing reality though that is that most of the Republican field has endorsed amnesty in one form or another. So this isn't much of a surprise. Trump is using his own vocabulary, but he's echoing the same amnesty talking points you could hear from Marco Rubio... or Barack Obama. During Friday's interview, Trump said the U.S. should take a two-step approach to the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the country. "Well, the first thing we do is take the bad ones — of which there are, unfortunately, quite a few," said Trump,...

Trump pro-amnesty? Walker stands firm against pro-amnesty ambush. Lots of changed Presidential immigration ratings. Donald Trump, Scott Walker and Rick Santorum revealed important things about themselves in high-pressure moments this past week, surrounded by the cameras and tape recorders of national media. Trump on national TV and on the Arizona border stumbled and let himself get boxed into saying he would offer amnesty to the illegal aliens who aren't the "bad ones." He seemed to be defensive and trying to prove that he isn't hostile to immigrants by also indicating he would like to see legal immigration increased. But Walker...

A remarkable transformation is underway in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The birthplace and final resting place of George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson—and once one of the most reliably-red of red states—is being rapidly turned into a progressive stronghold. These changes are not the result of an inside agency, or a natural evolution in political thinking, but rather the result of one of the most impactful yet least-discussed policies of the federal government. Each year the federal government prints millions of visas and distributes these admission tickets to the poorest and least-developed nations in the world. A middle-aged person living...

In a long overdue reaction to the mounting tally of victims of crimes committed by illegal aliens, the US House of Representatives enacted the "Enforce the Law for Sanctuary Cities Act." The bill would block federal law-enforcement grants to cities that refuse to enforce federal immigration laws. The vote for the bill was highly partisan with Republicans heavily in favor and Democrats heavily opposed. Mocking the bill as "the Donald Trump Act," Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif), the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, called the legislation "illogical. Sanctuary cities bear a disproportionate burden of the crimes committed by undocumented inhabitants....

Real leadership means delivering results. It means fighting to protect our country, support our veterans, tackle wasteful spending, and advance common-sense solutions that put jobs and growth first. That’s what John McCain provides in the U.S. Senate every day. And it’s why we’re partnering with the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry to launch a new ad and stand with McCain in 2016. Re-electing John McCain is critical to maintaining our pro-jobs majority in the U.S. Senate and building on the progress we’ve made in Congress this year.

The Border is safe, secure, one of the safest cities in Texas with a low crime rate says Xochitl Mora, the erudite spokeswoman for Laredo Mayor Pete Saenz. She cites the extremely valuable symbiotic relationship which the city of 250,000 has with its neighbors in Mexico and all across Texas and the southwest. “The U.S. relies on the $280 Billion trade, 60% of which goes through Laredo,” she said as she stressed this huge amount would not be possible if Laredo were not secure. She explained that Mayor Saenz will greet Donald Trump when he lands in Laredo, “just as...

A federal judge in California has ruled that the Obama administration’s detention of children and their mothers who were caught crossing the border illegally is a serious violation of a longstanding court settlement, and that the families should be released as quickly as possible. In a decision late Friday roundly rejecting the administration’s arguments for holding the families, Judge Dolly M. Gee of Federal District Court for the Central District of California found that two detention centers in Texas that the administration opened last summer fail to meet minimum legal requirements of the 1997 settlement for facilities housing children. -snip-...

Published on Jul 9, 2015 A clip from THEY COME TO AMERICA 3: The Cost of Obama's Legacy

Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley on Friday blasted Texas for denying birth certificates to some U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants without valid identification documents, declaring that “citizenship is a human right.” “Denying birth certificates to U.S, citizens is not only outrageous, it’s unconstitutional,” the former Maryland governor said in a statement released in English and Spanish. “The 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution could not be clearer. It states that ‘all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside,’ ” he...

Most of America thinks of Detroit as Motown, or the Motor City, and Ann Arbor as the home of the storied Big Ten football program and world-class medical research facilities of the University of Michigan.Illegal immigrants look at those towns differently. They see Detroit and Ann Arbor as “sanctuary cities,” communities where local law enforcement has a policy of not cooperating with federal immigration agents.Michigan Republicans, led by state Senate Majority Floor Leader Mike Kowall, want to erase the concept of “sanctuary cities” from the lexicon of municipal leaders in the state.“I am strongly opposed to any Michigan cities...