Jeb Bush, a former governor of Florida, had a lot to say at Friday’s Faith and Freedom Coalition conference. But the thing that has everyone talking: his description of immigrants as “more fertile” than native-born Americans.
Bush, a recurring potential candidate for president, is fluent in Spanish, married a Mexican-born woman and has a strong contingent of Hispanic support in Florida. When he said at the annual meeting in Washington, D.C., that immigrants are “more fertile,” and so can replenish the country’s population with young people, he likely misspoke, although it’s true that immigrant women have a higher fertility rate than women born in the U.S.
The line overrode his other remarks—even one suggesting that the United States model itself after Canada on immigration.
Noting that immigrants create more businesses than do individuals born in the United States, he said, “Canada is the place that we might want to look to”—referring to a country often attacked by conservatives as an example of a socialist state. “They have more economic immigrants, and they have seen sustained economic growth because of it.” >>MORE<<
