Jeb’s odd solution
by digby
… to the vexing problem of illegal immigration:
“First and foremost we need to control our border. The 40 percent of the people that have come here illegally came with a legal visa and overstayed their bounds. We ought to be able to figure out where they are and politely ask them to leave.”
A couple of thoughts here. Jeb probably thinks he’s dogwhistling to Latinos by pretending that he’s going after European college students and would-be hijackers instead of them but I don’t think they’re going to hear it. They know very well what the immigration debate is really all about and visas aren’t involved. He also thinks that by saying this the rabid xenophobic base will be appeased, but the last thing they want to hear is “politely ask them to leave”. They like the idea of “self-deportation” a lot. But they only like it in the context of making immigrants so miserable they will voluntarily go back to countries where they will starve or be killed. Let’s just say that would have to be pretty miserable. After all, if they don’t suffer then they won’t learn their lesson and they might come back.
It’s early in the cycle and Jeb’s out of practice. He’s also campaigning pretty much exclusively for rich donors at the moment so maybe this will impress them if no one else. (They have a different set of interests when it comes to immigration.) But he’s going to have to figure out a better way to speak to this issue if he wants Republicans to vote for him. The words “immigrant” and “polite” cannot be in the same sentence.
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