Jeb Bush’s recent comments on immigration are only separated from Joe Biden’s by a few days, but there is little distance between them on ideology.
Speaking before the US Chamber of Commerce in late March, VP Biden spoke on illegal immigration:
Speaking at a U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce event, Biden said undocumented immigrants should be given the chance to become citizens and contribute to the country.
“These people are just waiting, waiting for a chance to be able to contribute fully,” he said. “And by that standard, 11 million undocumented aliens are already Americans, in my view.”
Over the weekend, former FL Gov. Jeb Bush one-upped Biden:
“But the way I look at this — and I’m going to say this, and it’ll be on tape and so be it. The way I look at this is someone who comes to our country because they couldn’t come legally, they come to our country because their families — the dad who loved their children — was worried that their children didn’t have food on the table. And they wanted to make sure their family was intact, and they crossed the border because they had no other means to work to be able to provide for their family. Yes, they broke the law, but it’s not a felony. It’s an act of love.”
How many illegal aliens even cross in those circumstances — no other options at all available to them in their home countries? Those circumstances probably apply to a few percent of the millions who are in the United States against the law, and they’re coming from places like Iran, North Korea, China, Cuba and Venezuela. Economic hardship is not the same as systematic political oppression. If economic hardship justifies serial law-breaking on immigration, why doesn’t it justify ordinary theft and other crimes committed by American citizens and legal immigrants? Why doesn’t it justify driving around on the roads without auto insurance? Why doesn’t it justify a poor man stealing a rich man’s debit card and taking his money, to feed the poor man’s family? What’s the moral difference?
Bush went on from there:
“It’s an act of commitment to your family. I honestly think that 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.”
Why shouldn’t it? The same holes that allow the loving family man to cross allow all sorts of other people and things to cross too, never mind the economic impacts and the effect on the basic rule of law.
A contempt for the rule of law unites Bush and Biden on immigration, and joins both to the elites who want the cheap labor or the votes and don’t care at all about the other effects of illegal immigration.
Whatever Bush’s emotions are telling him, illegal immigration is still a crime. Illegal aliens break multiple laws not just when they cross, but every time they use false identification, drive without insurance, etc, and take advantage of American taxpayers every time they run afoul of law enforcement or use social services.
As the nation’s chief executive, a president is expected to uphold the laws of the land without favor or allowing emotion to trump the system. The fact is, as commander in chief, a president is supposed to look out for the nation’s security and integrity. The porous border, across from a drug war in a country known to have Hizballah operatives at work, is an obvious gap in both. If ordinary folks can cross, so can people who wish Americans great harm. If Jeb Bush refuses to see that, he’s no more fit to be president than Joe Biden or any other leftist Democrat.
We either have a nation of laws or we don’t. Barack Obama has been terrible for the notion that we do. Jeb Bush is sounding like he would be no better.
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