Yet another member of the Bush family has demonstrated an uncanny ability to flinch on immigration.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has long advocated a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, roughly in line with current thinking of a bipartisan group in Congress. Yet in a new book he has written with Clint Bolick, “Immigration Wars,” Bush has flip-flopped on the path-to-citizenship issue.

“Those who violated the law can remain but cannot obtain the cherished fruits of citizenship,” Bush and Bolick wrote.

That’s disappointing, much like the failure of Jeb’s brother George W. to push through an immigration bill in 2007.

In interviews since the book’s release, Jeb Bush has gone back to supporting avenues to citizenship.

To CNN, he said, “Today the only path to come to this country other than family reunification is to come illegally. We need to create another category of legal immigration where there is actually a line. So if you could create that through a path to citizenship, I would support that.”

With Congress set to take up comprehensive immigration reform, there isn’t time to waste on waffling. Republicans must decide: Are they going to back reform or keep up their long-standing campaign to demean undocumented immigrants?

For the last couple of decades, conservative demagogues opposed to sensible immigration reform have framed the issue as one of law and order. They have made an epithet out of an adjective — “illegals” — as a way to characterize undocumented immigrants as by nature criminal and, as such, unfit for U.S. citizenship.

Most Americans know better. Bush knows better too. A good portion of the book shows how deeply he understands the nuances of immigration law and policy. He discusses the fact that it is nearly impossible for many of the people who wind up illegally in the country to arrive legally.

He advocates clearing up the backlogs on visa requests based on family relationships by changing those systems and creating new avenues for legal immigration. He knows many immigrants are seeking work and calls for doubling the number of work-based visas for both highly skilled and guest workers.

Let’s recognize that most undocumented immigrants live among us to work; let’s also acknowledge that American employers and consumers have benefitted greatly from the low-wage labor these people provide.

Some Americans worry about the message it would send if we were to extend the possibility of citizenship to people who have broken the law to live in our country. One way to allay these fears is to reserve this chance for those immigrants with no criminal convictions, who don’t have problems with domestic abuse or substance abuse, who have a work record, who are able and willing to support themselves and their families.

In recent days, Bush has stressed that he doesn’t want to create incentives that might cause more people to come to this country illegally. But this too reveals a sleight of hand about what he clearly understands about the current immigration system.

If the U.S. truly wanted to eliminate the possibility of too many people illegally in the country, it would make the system responsive to the economy’s needs and allow those workers a legal way in.

The vast majority of people who are illegally in the country didn’t chose that route because criminality is their natural disposition. They end up in that category because there wasn’t a viable way for them to arrive legally. Congress can address this by reordering how and why visas are granted and holding businesses accountable for monitoring those they hire.

If there were a legal way, most people would have taken it. Bush admits this throughout his book. Endless individual stories of immigrants underscore that truth.

It’s ridiculous that the policy debate about immigration is sidetracked by the question of who among the “illegal” people is worthy of citizenship.

Congress needs to sidestep this silly argument once and for all.