Former President George W. Bush said on Thursday that the U.S. needs to “welcome” immigrants and thank them for doing the “jobs that Americans won’t do.”
From The Hill:
“Americans don’t want to pick cotton at 105 degrees, but there are people who want put food on their family’s tables and are willing to do that,” he said, according to The Associated Press. “We ought to say thank you and welcome them.”
Speaking at a summit in Abu Dhabi, Bush criticized President Trump’s approach to the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protects undocumented immigrations who were brought to the U.S. as children from deportation.
“America’s their home,” Bush said of DACA recipients.
The former President also told his audience that there is “clear evidence” of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
The Hill reports, that Bush made the comments while speaking at a summit in Abu Dhabi, according to The Associated Press, at a time when tensions are rising between President Trump and U.S. intelligence agencies over the investigation into Russian meddling.
“There’s pretty clear evidence that the Russians meddled,” Bush said, the news service reported. “Whether they affected the outcome is another question.”
“It’s problematic that a foreign nation is involved in our election system,” he added. “Our democracy is only as good as people trust the results.”
