MIAMI (AP) – Jeb Bush outlined plans Monday to improve security of the nation’s borders and enforcement of its existing immigration laws, calling both a requirement before any president could begin to address the status of the estimated 11 million people living in the country illegally.
“Finding a practical solution to the status of the people who are here illegally today is a nonstarter if our borders are not secure against future illegal immigration,” the former Republican governor of Florida said in a statement, released ahead of Monday night’s GOP candidate forum in New Hampshire and the party’s first presidential primary debate later in the week.
A focus on border security as a pre-condition of any overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws has become a common policy point among many of the Republican candidates for president.
But Bush’s focus on this aspect of the debate is notable, given the months he has spent defending his support for creating a path to permanent legal status for those in the country illegally – a position that is deeply unpopular among the party’s most passionate primary voters.
Many aspects of Bush’s border security proposal, from creating “forward-operating bases” to increasing the use of drones and other technology to watch for drug and human traffickers, are not new. Several are already employed by federal authorities and they largely mirror those Bush suggested in his 2013 book “Immigration Wars,” which he co-wrote with former U.S. attorney Clint Bolick.