Jeb Bush refuses to rule out 2016 run for White House

Jeb Bush, the brother and son of the last two Republican presidents, has said for the first time that he may run for the White House in 2016, while entering the debate on American immigration.

Bush, a former governor of Florida, pointedly declined to rule out a presidential bid while promoting a new book about how to deal with the estimated 11?million illegal migrants in the US.

"I have a voice and I want to share my beliefs about how the conservative movement and the Republican Party can regain its footing, because we've lost our way," he told NBC. "I won't [rule out running], but I'm not going to declare today, either."

Yet the 60-year-old son of George HW Bush and brother of George W Bush made an unsteady start to his first political intervention since the Republicans' electoral defeat.

Long hailed as a moderate popular among Hispanic voters, Bush surprised Washington by stating in his book that migrants in the US illegally should never be able to obtain full citizenship.

This placed him at odds with the growing number of Republicans to favour a "path to citizenship" since President Barack Obama won 71 per cent of Hispanic voters. Obama and a bipartisan group of senators are drawing up proposals to overhaul the immigration system.

Hours after the book's publication on Tuesday, Bush changed course, telling an NBC interview that he backed a citizenship scheme if it could avoid being a "magnet" for new illegal migrants.

"If you can craft that in law, and have a path to citizenship where there isn't an incentive for people to come illegally, I'm for it," he said. "I don't see how you do it - but I'm not smart enough to figure out every aspect of a really complex law," he added.