Jeb Bush said the debate over immigration reform needs to move past derisive rhetoric describing illegal immigrants.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u00a0The former Florida governor said in an interview Sunday in College Station, Texas, that people who come to the United States illegally are often looking for opportunities to provide for their families that are not available in their home countries.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u00a0\u201cYes, they broke the law, but it\u2019s not a felony. It\u2019s an act of love, it\u2019s an act of commitment to your family,\u201d Bush told Fox News host Shannon Bream at town hall event at the George Bush Presidential Library Center. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u201cI honestly think that is a different kind of crime, that there should be a price paid, but it shouldn\u2019t rile people up that people are actually coming to this country to provide for their families,\u201d he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Where to start?<\/p>\n
Is this a new criteria for leniency? \u00a0Are we differentiating between individuals who came over as unmarried young adults, and those who smuggled their entire family in, or left a family behind to send money back to? Or does Jeb Bush consider all illegal immigrants to be \u201cproviding for their families\u201d in some form or another, whether it be their children, or a parent back home? <\/p>\n
This sort of rhetoric bugs me for a couple reasons.<\/p>\n
In the first place, politicians are practically canonizing Mexican immigrants to the United States. \u00a0They\u2019re \u201chard workers\u201d; we\u2019re told repeatedly that they have a far stronger work ethic and are more capable and have more endurance at difficult jobs than Americans. \u00a0They have wonderful family values (never mind the fact that the second generation has abandoned those family values to have children outside marriage<\/a> at high and ever-growing rates). \u00a0And now their motivation to immigrate and work under-the-table or with fake IDs is the pure and holy one of caring for their families, not the crass one of simply wanting to improve their own personal standard of living.<\/p>\n
Can we not acknowledge that it is not a trivial thing to work under a false ID, often enough destroying someone else\u2019s finances through identity theft? \u00a0(Don\u2019t tell me we need to go after employers \u2014 the law explicitly says that you\u2019re not allowed to question IDs that, upon visual inspection, appear valid, lest you discriminate.) \u00a0And how many articles do we need about workers severely injured and receiving charity care, because they were working under the table, with no worker\u2019s compensation coverage or health and safety protections, before someone says, \u201chey, maybe we should do something about the proliferation of under-the-table work? \u00a0 <\/p>\n
This rhetoric of \u201cfamily\u201d is a mess. \u00a0Politicians love the phrase \u201cworking families\u201d \u2014 all manner of policies are invented in support of \u201cfamilies\u201d which are more sacred and holy than individuals. \u00a0Any act, whether illegal or just morally questionable, becomes more virtuous when undertaken to \u201csupport your family,\u201d and suddenly illegal border-crossing and working under the table or with a false ID is a heroic act, the modern equivalent of Jean Valjean\u2019s theft of a loaf of bread: <\/p>\n
\u201cYou stole a loaf of bread.\u201d
\u201cMy sister\u2019s child was close to death, and we were starving \u2014 \u201c
\u201cYou will starve again unless you learn the meaning of the law.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\nSing along with me now, \u201cmy name is Jean Valjean!\u201d<\/p>\n
But we\u2019re not 19th century France \u2014 or, rather, Mexico isn\u2019t. \u00a0Is it really necessary for us to have de facto open immigration from Mexico and ignore the corruption and other failures that produced that poverty in the first place? <\/p>\n
UPDATE: \u00a0There\u2019s a fuller quote at the Washington Post<\/a>\u00a0and the Daily Caller<\/a>. His comments seem flaky, at best:<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are means by which we can control our border better than we have and there should be penalties for breaking the law,\u201d the former Republican Florida governor argued during an interview with Fox News\u2019 Shannon Bream from the George H.W. Bush presidential library in College Station, Texas. \u201dBut the way I look at this \u2014 and this is not, you know, I\u2019m going to say this and it will be on tape, and so be it \u2014 the way I look at this is someone who comes to our country because they couldn\u2019t come legally, they come to our country because their family\u2019s, you know, a dad who loved their children was worried that their children didn\u2019t have food on the table. And they, you know, 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\u2019s not a felony. It\u2019s kind of \u2014 it\u2019s an act of love. It\u2019s an act of commitment to your family.\u201d \u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Bush, who says he will decide on a 2016 presidential run later this year, argued that those who cross the border illegally in search of a better life for their family should be differentiated from those \u201c40 percent\u201d of illegal immigrants who \u201ccome with legal visas and they overstay their bounds.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Is Bush differentiating between those who can demonstrate that they are true \u201ceconomic refugees\u201d unable to provide for their family at home, and those who had a low, but tolerable, standard of living? \u00a0Unlikely.<\/p>\n
And what to make of his differentiating between illegal border-crossers and visa overstayers? \u00a0What\u2019s the difference? \u00a0Is the assumption that visa-overstayers were somehow not in desperate poverty to begin with, or they wouldn\u2019t have been able to obtain the visa and make the trip in the first place?<\/p>\n