Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Wednesday that he supported some elements of the merit-based immigration legislation endorsed last week by President Donald Trump.
"Using a system where there’s a priority for people with skills, where there’s scarcity of labor — and there are immigrants who wish to fill that scarcity, there’s some value there," Bush, the former 2016 Republican presidential candidate, told Univision News in an interview.
"It's worth having a points-based system based on economic utility," Bush added. "Australia has it. Canada has it."
Trump backed legislation proposed by Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia that would be based on merit rather than family ties.
The bill would create a new points-based system for applicants who wanted to become legal permanent residents, or green card holders.
It would favor those who can speak English, financially support themselves and offer skills that would contribute to the U.S. economy.
A little more than 1 million green cards were issued in 2015.
Bush told Univision News that he supported the plan to limit family reunification to spouses and unmarried minor children under 21 years old.
"The U.S. is the only country in the world that has this extended definition of family, including adult siblings and adult parents," he said.
"As a result, since 1965, 85 percent of all legal immigrants come through that means. No other country comes close to that."
However, Bush slammed the bill's overall objective — cutting immigration in half — and the English requirement for green-card applicants.
"When you become a citizen you have to pass a citizenship test in English, unless you are an elderly person," he told Univision News. "That’s the proper way to deal with this.
"People who come from other countries learn English — and it's to their advantage that they do it.
"And as long as we have a set of shared values that we believe in, it doesn’t matter to me," Bush added. "And it shouldn’t matter to anybody else."
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