Sen. Rand Paul has some measured but clear criticism Sunday of Jeb Bush’s description of illegal immigration as “an act of love.”
“You know, I think he might have been more artful, maybe, in the way he presented this,” said Paul, a Kentucky Republican, said on ABC’s This Week. “But I don’t want to say, ‘oh, he’s terrible for saying this.’ If it were me, what I would have said is, ‘people who seek the American dream are not bad people. However, we can’t invite the whole world.’”
“When you say they’re doing an act of love and you don’t follow it up with, ‘but we have to control the border,’ people think, well because they’re doing this for kind reasons that the whole world can come to our country,” Paul added.
Both Paul and Bush are seen as strong potential contenders for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Paul appears to be taking steps to launch a bid, while Bush said recently he’d decide on whether to run by the end of the year.
Bush, a former governor of Florida, angered many on the right last Sunday when he said at an event honoring his father, President George H. W. Bush, that most illegal immigratns come to the U.S. “because they couldn’t come legally.”
“Yes, they broke the law, but it’s not a felony,” Bush continued. “It’s an act of love. It’s an act of commitment to your family. I honestly think that that is a different kind of crime that there should be a price paid, but it shouldn’t rile people up that people are actually coming to this country to provide for their families.”
Zachary Roth