Posted on 09/22/2015 8:34:59 AM PDT by HomerBohn
An invigorated Jeb Bush defied his partys lurch to the right over immigration on Monday with a passionate speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, in which he called for a path to legal citizenship for undocumented migrants.
Fresh from a presidential debate that saw him criticized for speaking Spanish, lacking energy and having a Mexican wife, the former Florida governor took the jibes from Donald Trump and appeared to feed off them before an audience of business leaders in Houston.
Earned legal status is the dignified way, the practical way, the American way of solving the problem of 12 million immigrants, he said.
If you embrace a set of shared values, it shouldnt matter if you have a Z at the end of your name or your accent might be different, he added.
There are voices in my party that dont agree with any of this. The louder voices I believe that this country is the most extraordinary on the face of the earth, we just have to start acting like it again.
Though he has long been a supporter of immigration reform, Bush, like his Florida rival Senator Marco Rubio, had been more muted in recent months as the issue appeared to place them on the fringes of the Republican primary race.
But the increasingly shrill attacks on immigration from Trump, together with comments from Ben Carson questioning the role of Muslims in American life, appear to have given Bush a newfound lease of life as the anti-xenophobic voice of his party.
He accused rivals of playing the game of striking fear in peoples hearts and singled out Trump for questioning his use of Spanish during a recent school visit.
Donald Trump apparently said I should not speak Spanish to them for some odd reason, said Bush, who began and ended Mondays speech in Spanish. They spoke in Spanish to me and I spoke in Spanish to them.
They all speak English, by the way, in case you are worried: they are bilingual. They are going to be extraordinarily competitive.
The personal nature of the attacks on Bushs wife, Columba, who Trump accused of skewing his perspective on immigration, appears to have stirred a more emotional side of his often policy-heavy stump speech.
The notion that some how shes not [patriotic], he said. Its laughable. Its so sad that people dont have any sense of what the immigration experience is about.
Thats the American way. Its not when we divide people and call people idiots.
I am tired of how we try to figure out ways to break ourselves up in our disparate parts, added Bush, as he held his hands out wide, rather than wagging his finger.
(Watch Jeb's video at link)
As with many such events, Bush was briefly heckled by immigration campaigners at the outset of the event. He silenced them by agreeing with many of their demands.
Heres what I believe. I believe we need immigration reform. I believe Dream Act kids should have a path to citizenship, said Bush over the noise of the hecklers.
I have been consistently for the Dream Act kids to get a path to citizenship and I will continue to be for it irrespective of what the political ramifications of that are.
Whether the more open embrace of immigration reform can help Bush close his polling deficit in the Republican primary remains to be seen, but he insisted it was a policy compatible with his other campaign pledges on economic growth, taxation and education.
Immigration reform ought to be part of a strategy for high, sustained economic growth where more people have a chance of earned success, said Bush.
This apparently is somewhat out of the mainstream, temporarily, in my party, but it isnt really: a great of majority of Republicans believe in immigration reform.
Yeah, we have to secure the border, of course we do
but we dont need to build a wall. We dont need to deport every person that is in the country that would cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Thats not a practical conservative plan.
I personally think he's running for president of messyco.
> If you embrace a set of shared values, it shouldnt matter if you have a Z at the end of your name or your accent might be different,
Bush still hurls insults at Americans who want our law enforced. This guy is an enormous jerk.
Still though he has huge support in his native TX and his adopted FL. Maybe not too many other places though
And people think Dubya’s the dumb one.
Yeah, screw what you American citizens want, what matters is what I want".
Jeb is about to re announce......as a socialist!
booosh ees a goner main....
I ain’t reading this thread. Did Jeb speak any English this time ?
LOL
I would literally vote for Jesse Jackson before I would vote for Jeb!. Jeb! is a contemptible pile of ordure.
Jebbie, let me splain sumtin to you.
If you do not sew that border up tighter than a gnat’s ass, once you announce amnesty, you won’t be giving amnesty to 12 million. It will be a much bigger number.
I knew a couple of guys in Vietnam who shot themselves in the foot. It didn’t work for them either.
¡Yeb! sides with illegal aliens and their employers over the citizens of the USA and the rule of law.
His nomination will be the suicide of the GOP.
If this low IQ, low energy idiot gets the GOP nomination, HUGE numbers of GOP voters are going to stay home on election day nest year.
...and wait for one of the fired non-political generals to lead the revolution against this evil government.
It didn’t matter which weasel squatted in the oval orifice!
The GOP is dead....from the head down.
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