Jeb Bush is sticking to his controversial claim that immigrants who sneak into the United States illegally are doing so out of "an act of love" to provide for their families, in an exclusive interview with
Newsmax TV.
But the former Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate adds illegals must also pay fines, work hard and get on the tax rolls before there's any chance they can be granted legal status.
"I think for the eleven or twelve million people here illegally, they should come out from the shadows, they should pay a fine, they should pay taxes, they should work," Bush said in an interview airing Wednesday on "Newsmax Prime" with J.D. Hayworth.
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"They should not receive federal government assistance, they should learn English, and over an extended period of time, they should get legal status. Not a path to citizenship."
Bush reiterated that he believes that the "majority" of immigrants who illegally enter the United States do so to provide for their families because they can't "put food on the table for their kids" in their own countries.
"Now, those that come to commit crimes, those that come to sell drugs, they're not doing it as an act of love. They're doing it to do hardship and to gain monetarily as they do it. And, they should be put in prison or they should be deported," Bush told Hayworth.
"We should have strong immigration laws. But, look, we're a nation of immigrants people come for the right reasons by and large, but we should pick and choose who comes. It should be our responsibility to control the border."
"No one has suggested that we open up our border and this administration has let us down on that as well. Clearly, whether it's Arizona or Texas or even Florida which is a border state in some ways, we have a lax enforcement mechanism."
He said that lax system makes it more difficult to introduce reforms.
Asked by Hayworth how Americans can be assured he will secure the nation's borders if elected president, Bush said:
"Look, I've got a proven record at fixing things and this is broken. There is a series of simple things that we need to execute on. Where fences are appropriate, let's build fences because that does help. We have GPS technology and all sorts of … drone technologies that would help us."
"I think there needs to be a lot more cooperation with local law enforcement and federal law enforcement agencies. We didn't need to deputize local law enforcement to be the eyes and ears of Border Patrol agents. There's lots of work that we can do."
"Forty percent of the people that come here legally come with a legal visa and just stay. I mean, other countries sort this out. They have biometric technologies for exit and entrance, they know where people are, they round them up and they send them home."
Bush's "act of love" remark, made in 2014, has been tasty campaign fodder for billionaire developer Donald Trump who has used it in ads to criticize him.
Last summer, Trump released an ad on his
Instagram account, juxtaposing Bush's statement with images of illegal immigrants who've been charged with or convicted of murder. "Forget love. It's time to get tough!" the Trump ad urged.
Bush has been struggling to improve his poll numbers which have faltered in recent months.
In a new
CBS News/New York Times national poll, Bush — son of President George H.W. Bush and brother of President George W. Bush — ties in fourth place with Carly Fiorina, trailing Dr. Ben Carson with 26 percent, Trump with 22 percent and Sen. Marco Rubio with 8 percent.
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