Barack Obama and Jeb Bush on Immigration

Immigration reform remains one of the great challenges facing our nation, and unfortunately, the policies of the current president fail to match his rhetoric.  In today's NY Times:

With the Obama administration deporting illegal immigrants at a record pace, the president has said the government is going after “criminals, gang bangers, people who are hurting the community, not after students, not after folks who are here just because they’re trying to figure out how to feed their families.” 

But a New York Times analysis of internal government records shows that since President Obama took office, two-thirds of the nearly two million deportation cases involve people who had committed minor infractions, including traffic violations, or had no criminal record at all. Twenty percent — or about 394,000 — of the cases involved people convicted of serious crimes, including drug-related offenses, the records show.... 

Mr. Obama came to office promising comprehensive immigration reform, but lacking sufficient support, the administration took steps it portrayed as narrowing the focus of enforcement efforts on serious criminals. Yet the records show that the enforcement net actually grew, picking up more and more immigrants with minor or no criminal records.

Will the next President do better?  There is reason to hope.  In today's Wall Street Journal:

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Sunday that he would make up his mind this year on whether to run for president, and waded into the immigration debate by describing the actions of many who come to the U.S. illegally as an "act of love."... 

"Someone who comes to our country because they couldn't come legally…yes, they broke the law but it's not a felony. It's an act of love. It's an act of commitment to your family. I honestly think that that is a different kind of crime," he said.