Jeb Bush Insists on ‘Path to Citizenship,’ Says Deportation Is Not an ‘American Value’

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush told a Hispanic audience on Monday that illegal aliens must be given U.S. citizenship, and encouraging them to “self-deport” is not an American value.

Bush made his remarks at church in Orlando, where he discussed his Christian faith and support for amnesty for illegal aliens, the same day a CNN poll showed that 64 percent of Republican voter support deporting illegals.

Self-deportation is another matter: Since the vast majority of illegal aliens commit felonies in order to forge their documents, something like E-Verify could halt fraud in its tracks. No fake Social Security Card, no job, less reason to break into the U.S. Encouraging illegals to leave — and to take their massive crime wave with them — is a moderate solution to America’s immigration problem, but it’s too much to stomach for Jeb.

In a Spanish interview that day, Jeb also told MSNBC he’s “hurt” by GOP frontrunner Donald Trump’s comments that criminals from Mexico are illegally entering the country and committing crimes against Americans, such as rape.

“I was hurt hearing somebody speaking in such a vulgar fashion. This makes solving this problem much more difficult. When we have politicians like that we cannot progress,” said Bush according to a translator. “In a political sense it was bad, and it creates an environment that is worse.”

Why pointing out that illegal aliens commit a great deal of crime in the U.S. “creates an environment” worse than, well, a crime-ridden one is unclear.

As Manhattan scholar Heather Mac Donald has pointed out, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide and two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants in Los Angeles are on illegal aliens. She has also noted that “between the foreign-born generation and their American children, the incarceration rate of Mexican-Americans jumps more than eightfold, resulting in an incarceration rate that is 3.45 times higher than that of whites.” Current immigration policy, set by Ted Kennedy’s Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, creates dangerous conditions for Americans. Yet GOP figureheads like Jeb simply don’t question it, and double down on the need to allow violent criminals from backwards cultures to become U.S. citizens.

H/T: The Right Scoop

Email Katie at kmchugh@breitbart.com. Follow her on Twitter: @k_mcq