Jeb Bush says immigrants key to economic prosperity in US

Arguing for an overhauling of the US immigration system, Former Florida governor Jeb Bush has claimed that immigrants were "more fertile" and thus a great benefit to American society.
"Immigrants create far more businesses than native-born Americans over the last 20 years. Immigrants are more fertile, and they love families, and they have more intact families, and they bring a younger population. Immigrants create an engine of economic prosperity," Bush said at the annual Faith and Freedom conference here yesterday.
The younger brother of former President George W Bush backed his remarks with an analysis of America's demographic problems, saying that the rate of Americans entering retirement couldn't be sustained by the current size of the workforce, the CNN reported.

Bush argued that the problem lay in an imbalance between working Americans paying taxes and the number of older Americans - living longer - who have been promised government support in their retirement.
Part of the solution was encouraging more legal immigration that would add people to the workforce, thereby creating more payroll tax revenue, said Bush, who unlike many Republicans, has backed a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants, provided they pay fines and learn English.
Economists have long warned that government programs for seniors like Social Security and Medicare will face long-term funding problems.
"The one way that we can rebuild the demographic pyramid is to fix a broken immigration system to allow for people to come and learn English and play by our rules, to embrace our values and to pursue their dreams in our country with a vengeance to create more opportunities for all of us," said Bush.

Such measures have been staunchly opposed by conservatives, who say allowing people who came to the United States illegally to remain here amounts to amnesty.