Jeb Bush on immigration: My plan is ‘dignified’

Jeb Bush used a speech here Monday before Hispanic business leaders to chide his party over its attitude toward immigration, drawing not-so-subtle contrasts between himself and bomb-throwing billionaire Donald Trump.

As Bush finished his sentence, a group began to chant, “no hope without our vote!” in reference to the notion that a Republican can not become president without winning over Hispanics.

Though he was interrupted at the start of his remarks by pro-immigration protestors, Bush won applause from the audience when he re-asserted that he’s in favor of earned citizenship for individuals who were brought to the country illegally as children, also known as DREAMers. “I believe that DREAM Act kids should have a path to citizenship”, Bush told the protesters during the address at the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce conference. In advocating for a large wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, for instance, he accused the Mexican government of sending the “bad ones” into the U.S.

“If one of the candidates is looking to “Make America Great Again” he should just look at the Latina entrepreneurs in this country”, Bush said.

But with where Trump has dragged the Republican primary on immigration, Bush was forced to talk about where he stands in relation to the increasingly rightward tilt of the candidates on immigration.

“We don’t need to build a wall”. Former President George W. Bush is headlining a fundraiser Wednesday in Houston for his brother’s campaign.

As security struggled to remove the demonstrators – some of whom carried signs that asked, “Who is the real Jeb Bush?”

Bush acknowledged that this vision “apparently is somewhat out of the mainstream temporarily in my party, but it isn’t, really”. That would cost hundreds of billions of dollars, that’s not a conservative plan. “Giving people the chance to earn legal status will be a far better approach”.

At last week’s Republican debate, Trump doubled down on his insistence that immigrants speak English, and he refused to apologize for tweeting about Bush’s Mexican-American wife.

Once the protests died down, Bush continued with a jab at Donald Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination, with whom he’s sparred repeatedly over immigration.

Calling Obama a “gifted man”, he said the president has used his talents to divide the country, the same way some in his party are doing, but argued that he would be more inclusive.

Bush has made his ties to Hispanic community a crucial part of his campaign.