George W. Bush emerges as immigration advocate against Republican tide

WASHINGTON • Out of office for a dozen years and still castigated for his "war on terror," former US president George W. Bush has resurfaced as a passionate immigration advocate just as his Republican Party careens in the opposite direction.

The 74-year-old Texan, whose disastrous invasion of Iraq and failure to implement immigration reform helped give rise to Mr Donald Trump, is enjoying a resurgence of sorts in the aftermath of Mr Trump's erratic tenure.

US troops in Afghanistan, the "forever war" of Mr Bush's presidency, now face a September pullout under Democratic President Joe Biden.

With nostalgia evident, the 43rd president, who normally lays low, has released a book titled Out Of Many, One, featuring 43 of his own oil paintings of immigrants he has come to know.

In a Washington Post op-ed column on April 16, Mr Bush said he compiled the book of portraits of immigrants who have embraced their adopted country as a way to help lower the temperature and "humanise the debate on immigration" in America.

But the man who once served as governor from a state on the front lines of the political fight over border security also unleashed fierce criticism of his party and its antagonistic anti-immigrant stance.

The GOP has become "isolationist, protectionist, and to a certain extent nativist", Mr Bush told NBC Today in an interview.

He said he supports a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented workers if they pay back taxes and have a clean background check. He is backing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme, which offers protection from deportation and permission to work for people who arrived in the United States as children and without papers.

Such positions have put Mr Bush at odds with his party's base, and align more with the progressive immigration ideals of Democrats - many of whom were fierce enemies of Mr Bush when he was commander in chief.

Mr Bush has made rare mention of Mr Trump, who exploited their party's worst xenophobic impulses. And he acknowledged his own views - "border enforcement with a compassionate touch" - are not likely to change minds in the most inflexible quarters. "I'm just an old guy they put out to pasture," he said.

Mr Bush's book, plus a media barrage including appearances on morning TV, late-night talk shows and radio, may be part of a larger strategy. The effort could be aimed at an improbable transition from scorned architect of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which cost extraordinary blood and treasure and gave rise to anti-American extremist groups, to elder statesman.

"Part of what he's doing here may be to salvage his legacy," said University of Dayton political science assistant professor Christopher Devine. "We reinterpret previous presidents in the context of our own times... Bush might have seemed extreme, but people see what comes afterwards and they see it differently."

After the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, Mr Bush suddenly led an American citizenry united in purpose. But eight years later, mired in Iraq and Afghanistan, he left his country more divided than at any time in living memory.

The toll of US engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan has been staggering: a combined 6,800 Americans dead, along with hundreds of thousands of other fatalities, and trillions of dollars in US spending.

Mr Bush faced accusations that torture and other human rights violations were committed on his watch. "Bush and many others overreacted to 9/11," said professor emeritus of law William Banks at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. But he added that Mr Bush was "never nativist", and his recent efforts on immigration are not a "whitewashing" of history but appear to be a genuine effort at problem-solving.

"After four years of Trump, Bush 43 looks like Churchill," he said, referring to Britain's revered mid-century prime minister.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE