Immigration Reform News 2015: Obama Doesn't Want Immigration Reform, Says Jeb Bush

Republican presidential hopeful and former Florida governor Jeb Bush has accused President Obama of not really wanting immigration reform and using this issue as a tool to gain political leverage.

Bush appeared on the National Review Ideas Summit last April 30 where he was asked on various issues including the economy, immigration and the Baltimore riots.

He said by not fixing the illegal immigration issue in the U.S., Obama and the Democrats are turning it to their advantage.

"By doing nothing, you have two things that happen at least under the age of Obama," Bush said. "You have a president who uses this . . . as a wedge issue and we always lose."

He said Obama does not want immigration reform.

"We always lose on the political argument. He always wins, or the Democrats always win, if you think about family being the driver of legal immigration rather than the economic driver. Delaying this is what he wants. He doesn't want immigration reform," Bush said.

Bush was asked to comment about Republic presidential hopeful Scott Walker's suggestion that when it comes to legal immigration, the first thing that should be thought about was the effect of immigration to American workers and their wages.

Bush said it's not a zero-sum game.

"If we start thinking that it's a zero-sum game, we're gonna play the game what Barack Obama plays so well. It's the wrong approach," he said.

Bush said there are 3 to 5 million unfilled jobs in the U.S. that require skills.

"Had we fixed our immigration system the way I would propose it, how much extra job growth of an investment would have happened in our country that would provide opportunities to higher wages for people struggling near or at the bottom or people that are squeezed in the middle," he said.

He suggested that young people are needed for the U.S. to have an annual economic growth of 4 percent.

"If you wanna grow at 4 percent per year instead of 2 percent per year, you need younger, more dynamic people inside of our economy that are productive to get to 4 percent growth," he said.

He added," You can't do it by declining population. Immigration is not an end-all, be-all but an immigration system that fixes the border and expands the number of economic immigrants that narrows the number of immigrants coming for family purposes."

Bush said the immigration program should be narrowed to spouse and minor children.