A day after a firestorm over GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush’s use of the word “anchor baby”, his son George P. Bush told a major Spanish-language news organization his father will “pivot” from “loaded” terms like “anchor baby” and focus on the country’s complicated issues. Several contenders, including Donald Trump, the party’s front-runner, have called for amending the Constitution to end the right of automatic citizenship for all people born in the United States.
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He said: “If there’s fraud or if there’s abuse, if people are bringing, pregnant women are coming in to have babies simply because they can do it, then there ought to be greater enforcement…”
Bush’s wife was born in Mexico and he has said in the past that people entering the country illegally do so as an “act of love” for their families.
The term anchor baby has gone from fringe to the spotlight, dominating political conversation on the 2016 presidential campaign trail this week.
“Are you aware that the term ‘anchor baby, ‘ that’s an offensive term?”
I have said I am open to exploring ways we can look at people that are deliberately coming here for purposes of having a child.
Jeb Bush and Donald Trump are actually agreeing for once.
In a final twist Thursday, Bush called attention to his rival’s past.
“It’s all about him“, Bush said.
“We are going to win as conservatives if we solve problems by reforming things for everybody”, Bush said, his voice echoing until applause began to trickle across the hall. To which Bush replied: “No, it isn’t…”
“You mean it’s not politically correct, and yet everybody uses it?” he added.
“I don’t agree with it but at the same time i don’t agree with the parents, because I have known of parents to come and have their baby here, just to try to be able to stay here which I feel is wrong”, said Alice Gomez of Cathedral City.
Posturing aside, there’s a larger issue at play; the controversial term that Bush, Trump and other conservatives are parading around is basically myth, writes The Washington Post’s Janell Ross.
“Right down the road, we have Jeb”, Trump said early in the town hall, drawing boos from an auditorium packed with enthusiastic supporters.
According to edition.cnn.com, Trump gives yet another set of attacks for Jeb which the latter willingly responded with another attacks.
The Kochs introduced Bush earlier this month to some of the most generous donors in their political network. “The best way to shake those perceptions it to engage against the person who is in the media on a 24/7 loop”.
It’s obvious, not everyone milling in the hallway before Bush’s speech was ready to embrace him as their own.
LLAMAS: But just two years ago Bush co-chaired a Hispanic outreach group that sent a memo to Capitol Hill suggesting conservatives shouldn’t use the term anchor baby.
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For Bush, there was no avoiding the elephant in the room, and he was asked directly how he would counter the new GOP front-runner.
