In 1991, NBA star Charles Barkley famously claimed he was misquoted in his own autobiography.
“There are going to be a couple of things (wrong),” Barkley said at the time.
Well, don’t be surprised if former Florida governor Jeb Bush is forced to pull a Barkey and claim that ‘there are a couple of things wrong’ in his new book, Immigration Wars, after his appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe during which Bush apparently flopped on the policy flip he espouses in his book.
Bush said on Tuesday that he would support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants “if you can craft that in law where you can have a path to citizenship where there isn’t an incentive for people to come illegally” — a position that puts him at odds with his new book.
As Igor Volsky of Think Progress notes Bush agues that denying a path to citizenship for the 11 million unauthorized immigrations is “absolutely vital to the integrity of our immigration system that actions have consequences.” Those who enter the country illegally, Bush contends, should “start the process to earn permanent legal residency” after pleading guilty to breaking the law and paying “applicable fines or perform community service.” But they should not have access to “the cherished fruits of citizenship”:
It is absolutely vital to the integrity of our immigration system that actions have consequences— in this case, that those who violated the laws can remain but cannot obtain the cherished fruits of citizenship. To do otherwise would signal once again that people who circumvent the system can still obtain the full benefits of American citizenship. It must be a basic prerequisite for citizenship to respect the rule of law. But those who entered illegally, despite compelling reasons to do so in many instances, did so knowing that they were violating the law of the land. A grant of citizenship is an undeserving reward for conduct that we cannot afford to encourage. […]
Our proposal imposes two penalties for illegally entry: fines and/or community service, and ineligibility for citizenship. Yet it allows for illegal immigrants who have proven themselves to be otherwise law-abiding members of the community to remain in our country.
Look for Bush soon to quote the immortal words of Charles Barkley, “The majority of the book is correct, and I stick by it.”
Here’s the video of Bush’s appearance on Morning Joe, courtesy of Think Progress.
