Jeb Bush Endorses Unlimited Amnesty in Spanish Telemundo Interview

During a Spanish interview with Telemundo, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush endorsed amnesty for what he referred to as the “11 million” illegal aliens living in the U.S. in defiance of the law.

“For the 11 million people [who are here illegally], they must come out of the shadows, receive a work visa, start paying taxes and also pay a small fine, learn English, don’t receive government benefits, but they come out of the shadows and they receive legal status after some time,” Bush said on Monday, according to a translation provided by CNN.

Bush starts out on the wrong foot by claiming only 11 million illegal aliens are in the country. That number, repeated ad nauseam by the Washington establishment and mainstream media, assumes that illegal aliens responded to the Census at all, let alone admitted they were here illegally.

Aliens who forge green cards and steal Americans’ Social Security numbers aren’t likely to suddenly start filling out government forms truthfully. As professor of economics and social policy at the Harvard Kennedy School George Borjas put it: “These are people who don’t want to be found.”

In 2005, two portfolio managers at Bear Stearnes looked at several factors that didn’t rely on illegals’ self-reporting, including remittances and housing permits handed out in illegal alien enclaves, and estimated that 20 million illegals were present in the U.S. On top of that, Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele estimated in a 2006 TIME article that three million illegals entered the country every single year. Author Ann Coulter, who laid these numbers out clearly in her book Adios America, estimates there are at least 30 million illegals residing in the U.S.

Second, illegal aliens are now enthusiastically out of the shadows and busy filming “documentaries” of white liberals crying about their “privilege” when they’re not storming bookstores to rip up books they don’t like.

GOP establishment figures have been calling for a graduated path to amnesty for years: While Republicans will talk loudly about making illegals pay fines and taxes and learn English, the leftists in the federal bureaucracy will simply waive them, and rather than paying taxes, illegals receive a free pass and a check for $35,000.

Earlier on Monday, Bush told a Hispanic audience he wanted to grant legal status to every illegal immigrant who broke into the country, saying that enforcing immigration law with deportation — or even encouraging lawbreakers to leave — is not an “American value.”

Email Katie at kmchugh@breitbart.com. Follow her on Twitter: @k_mcq