On Immigration, Bush and Romney Blur

SAN DIEGO -- Are Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney simpatico on immigration? While Bush is reviled by the right for being too soft on the undocumented, and Romney is unpopular with the left for being too hard, what if it turns out that these likely 2016 presidential hopefuls actually share the same view?

On immigration, Romney is supposed to be to the right of Bush, and Bush is assumed to be to the left of Romney. But lately, each of them appears to be gliding across the spectrum.

A few weeks ago, during an interview on Univision, Romney surprised conservatives and liberals alike when he said that permanent immigration reform was "badly needed" and urged Republicans in Congress to pass legislation that would make "more transparent" the process by which illegal immigrants could earn legal status. This was a kinder and gentler Mitt.

In the 2012 campaign, Romney sounded heartless. He touted his opposition to "amnesty." He attacked Texas Gov. Rick Perry for signing a law that lets illegal immigrants pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities, and pounded former House Speaker Newt Gingrich for asserting that the GOP should not split up families. Romney also promised that, if elected president, he would veto the Dream Act -- a bill that would have given legal status to undocumented students if they went to college or joined the military.

By contrast, when discussing immigration, Bush usually comes across as reasonable. He has repeatedly extolled the contributions of immigrants to the United States, and long supported a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. He has scolded other Republicans for choosing to demagogue the issue and called upon his party to come up with a more positive and optimistic message. And he recently angered conservatives by characterizing the act of entering the United States illegally in order to feed one's family as an "act of love."

The fact that this last statement was, for some Republicans, so controversial goes to show just how hopeless the immigration debate can sometimes appear. What Bush said was pure common sense. People have been migrating from one place to another to ensure their survival for thousands of years, often so they can better care for their families. Have Americans become so petty and so spiteful that they feel it necessary to portray illegal immigrants one-dimensionally as takers and predators, and attack anyone who says otherwise?

Yet just as Romney was beginning to sound more like Bush, now Bush is suddenly sounding a lot like Romney.

On the question of what to do with the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States, Bush seems to be singing a tune that Romney made famous: "self-deportation." The idea was to make conditions so inhospitable for illegal immigrants that they skedaddle.

During a recent speech in San Francisco, Bush zeroed in on the subset of the illegal immigrant population made up of people who overstayed their visas, and said: "We ought to be able to find where they are and politely ask them to leave."

Liberals pounced. Julieta Garibay, co-founder of United We Dream, which advocates for undocumented youth, called the Bush approach "self-deportation with a smile."

That's cute. But here is what always gets lost in this discussion: the alternative -- i.e., the way that immigration enforcement policy is currently being handled by the Obama administration -- is nothing to smile about.

You see, self-deportation is for wimps. The concept is most appealing to squishy pro-business Republicans -- such as Romney and Bush -- who don't have the stomach to do the bad things. President Obama doesn't have that problem -- forcibly deporting 2 million illegal immigrants, having immigration agents knock down doors and haul away grandmothers in handcuffs, dividing hundreds of thousands of families, dumping thousands of U.S.-born kids into foster care, locking up in "baby jails" infants who arrived from Central America without documents, and perpetuating just about every other nightmare scenario you can imagine.

Bush is in hot water with the left for saying that he would request that visa overstayers leave the country. Fair enough. Politely asking people to leave isn't much of an enforcement strategy. He should choose his words more carefully. After all, he doesn't want to sound like Romney, who always flunks the immigration issue with flying colors.

But I'm curious. Where's the outrage for an administration that, when manhandling the undocumented to the point of abuse, has never felt the need to be polite?

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Ruben Navarrette's email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com.