Like the old Bourbons who "had learned nothing and forgotten nothing," former President George W. Bush took to the Washington Post recently to call for amnesty for "DREAMers" and enactment of "comprehensive immigration reform."

Bush's op-ed was written for the purpose of promoting his new book, Out of Many, One: Portraits of America's Immigrants, "a powerful new collection of oil paintings and stories," certainly a valuable addition to coffee tables everywhere.

The book, he said, is designed to "humanize the debate on immigration" and is "not a brief for any specific set of policies."  However, it sets forth "principles for reform that can restore the people's confidence in an immigration system that serves both our values and our interests."

He begins by touting DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), the Obama proposal to confer citizenship for those brought here illegally as children, known as "DREAMers," a word curiously that is never applied to poor, aspiring Americans.

But it doesn't end there.  When it comes to the rest of the illegal population, Bush states:

[U]ndocumented immigrants should be brought out of the shadows through a gradual process in which legal residency and citizenship must be earned, as for anyone else applying for the privilege.

Well, we've heard that before, haven't we?  This is gradual amnesty, as opposed to the immediate amnesty that he would confer to "DREAMers."

But don't worry:

Requirements should include proof of work history, payment of a fine and back taxes, English proficiency and knowledge of U.S. history and civics, and a clean background check.

As National Review's Rich Lowry notes, "[s]uch requirements are always promised in comprehensive immigration bills and are always toothless, serving only as a way to deny that the amnesty for illegal immigrants is indeed an amnesty."

Bush calls for increased border security as well and advocates "all the necessary resources — manpower, physical barriers, advanced technology, streamlined and efficient ports of entry ..."

This is all well and good.  The open-borders crowd always agrees to "border security" — later.  This was the problem with the 1986 amnesty agreed to in good faith by President Reagan.

In 2013, Reagan's attorney general, Ed Meese, explained why it didn't work:

The 1986 reform did not solve our immigration problem — in fact, the population of illegal immigrants has nearly quadrupled since that 'comprehensive' bill.

Why didn't it work? Well, one reason is that everything else the 1986 bill promised — from border security to law enforcement — was to come later. It never did. Only amnesty prevailed, and that encouraged more illegal immigration.

Bush proposes more of the same.

Moreover, he proposes more legal immigration as well:

Increased legal immigration, focused on employment and skills, is also a choice that both parties should be able to get behind. The United States is better off when talented people bring their ideas and aspirations here. We could also improve our temporary entry program, so that seasonal and other short-term jobs can more readily be filled by guest workers who help our economy, support their families and then return home.

Notice that Bush is not proposing merit-based immigration as a replacement to the current system.  He just wants more legal immigrants.

During an interview on CBS News, Bush confessed that one of his biggest disappointments was not passing comprehensive immigration reform in 2007.  That proposal failed because it was rejected by rank-and-file voters in his own party.  Yet in neither the Washington Post op-ed nor in the CBS interview did the former president confront and answer the objections of the immigration skeptics.  Instead, he just offered up the same mix of failed policies and the same lame clichés.

Bush's portraits show talent and imagination.  But his views on immigration policy remain as clueless as ever.

Image: Picryl.

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