Wall Street Journal
By Sara Murray
June 13, 2013
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush threw his support behind the Senate immigration bill Thursday, after much fanfare about whether he would support a path to citizenship.
“I think they have done the right thing about creating the proper balance,” Mr. Bush said at a Bipartisan Policy Center immigration event. “I support the Senate bill that takes 13 years with fines and learning English and having gates related to border security.”
The bill, which is currently winding its way through the Senate, beefs up border security and provides a 13-year path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
But there’s been sharp division in the GOP over whether unauthorized immigrants should ever be able to obtain citizenship. Some Republican lawmakers in the House have said they could support legalization but not a path to citizenship. And Mr. Bush drew immigration advocates’ ire earlier this year when he released a book that said immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally “cannot obtain the cherished fruits of citizenship.”
Mr. Bush’s views on the issue have drawn extra attention because he’s considered a potential 2016 contender and his wife was born and raised in Mexico.
He predicted there was a good change a bill would pass Congress but downplayed the risk to Republicans if the immigration overhaul fails.
“It would be hard to imagine if Republicans in the House pass a bill and it doesn’t …forge a consensus in the conference committee, for whatever reason, that someone could be blamed,” he said. “I’m sure there will be efforts to try.”
Mr. Bush is the latest in a series of prominent Republicans who have touted the importance of rewriting the immigration laws this week. On Wednesday Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) and Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) both gave speeches on the subject, although Mr. Paul says the Senate bill still needs work before he can support it.
Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour hopped on the bandwagon of Republicans pitching immigration this week. On Thursday he made his case the economic benefits of immigration at the Bipartisan Policy Center event. Mr. Barbour is an adviser to a group that’s lobbying for an immigration overhaul.
“America’s in a global battle for capital and labor,” he said, “In the short-term and the mid-term, a lot of this labor has to come from other countries.”
He said lawmakers from some southern, red states might have an incentive to support the bill because it provides new visa programs to make it easier to hire foreign workers in agriculture and meatpacking jobs.
Immigrants “are willing to do nasty dirty work where every day they come home covered in blood and guts,” he said. He pointed to a Mississippi meatpacking plant as a sign that Americans aren’t interested in doing those kinds of jobs.
Certain Mississippi inmates are eligible for work release programs in places like chicken plants, he said. But it hasn’t always panned out.
“The inmates, they won’t stay two days,” Mr. Barbour said. “They’d rather be in the penitentiary than work in a chicken plant.”
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