Immigration and assimilation took the forefront at the National Review Institute Ideas Summit where the opinions on immigration from the 2016 Republican field could not have been more diverse.
Former Gov. Jeb Bush bluntly told immigration hawks including National Review’s editor Richard Lowry, “I love you. I just think you’re wrong.”
He even lashed out against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who formally proposed reducing legal immigration in order to protect the wages and job security of low-skilled American workers. Bush said of Walker’s plan, “You want to grow at 4 percent instead of 2 percent per year, you need a younger, more dynamic people inside our economy to get 4 percent growth.” He even called large levels of immigration a necessity, stating that without them the population of the United States would shrink like parts of Europe and Japan.
But according to the Migration Policy Institute, Bush’s statements do not quite ring true. Legal immigrants to the United States are frequently older than the average American and do not provide the young population he is alluding to. Plus, other studies have found that even without any new legal immigrants, the population of America would still increase by an estimated 31 million by 2050.
Bush’s former protégé, Sen. Marco Rubio took a more conservative approach, offering right-wing platitudes and saying, “You don’t have a right to illegally immigrate here.”
He stated that those like Jose Antonio Vargas, who propose the idea that there is a universal right to immigrate anywhere at any time, are wrong. Rubio also slammed President Obama’s executive orders on immigration, saying they create a magnet for more illegal immigrants.
Nonetheless, the Senator did state that after the U.S. secured its southern border he would support some a path to legalization or citizenship with certain requirements. Illegal immigrants must be living in America for more than ten years, learned English, and paid a heavy fine. Most illegal immigrants would meet that requirement as the average illegal immigrant has a twelve-year residency in the United States, according to Pew.
Likely presidential candidate, Louisiana Gov.Bobby Jindal was the only one to discuss the importance of assimilation, saying, “There’s nothing wrong with saying English is our language. There’s nothing wrong with teaching American exceptionalism in our schools-not grievances or victimhood.”
Jindal emphasized that if America abandoned its “melting pot” assimilation practices we could risk a similar future as Europe. Many Muslim immigrants in Europe live balkanized from society and do not consider themselves as part of the culture even after several generations have lived there.
The differences on immigration amongst Republican presidential candidates is the polar opposite of the Democrats who are mulling over a run, all of which support amnesty.
