Bush and Trump visit U.S.-Mexico border a month apart, and the contrast is stark

When Donald Trump toured the U.S.-Mexico border last month in Texas, he was greeted by throngs of television cameras and reporters and declared illegal immigration a “huge problem.”

By comparison, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s trip Monday to the border city of McAllen, Texas, was more low-key. He met with local officials behind closed doors and briefly took questions from reporters afterward.

The contrast was illustrative of the approaches to their presidential campaigns: Trump, the brash and unpredictable front-runner, and Bush, who ceded that top status to Trump, more methodical. And in recent days, they have sparred on substance, too, particularly over immigration.

On social media and in stump speeches, each have assailed one another’s proposals on the issue. Bush has called Trump’s plan to end the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship as out of line with conservative principles.

In brief remarks Monday as he toggled between English and Spanish, Bush said that Trump’s plan to fix the immigration system, which includes building wall along the border and having Mexico pay for it, is simply “unrealistic.”

“This is not grounded in conservative principles,” Bush said. “ It would cost hundreds of billions of dollars. It’s not realistic. It won’t be implemented and we need border security to be able to deal with getting this country back on track.”

Bush, who supports legal status for the estimated 11 million people in the country illegally, has among the more moderate Republican immigration proposals. But in a Republican primary those positions make Bush – polling second behind Trump in several national polls – a target for candidates looking to capture support from the conservatives who vote in the party’s primaries and caucuses.

And when Trump has attacked other challengers, he has largely focused on Bush, castigating him as coming up short on immigration.