Former US President George W Bush has waded into the US’ ongoing debate on immigration saying that migrants were “a force for good”.

In an opinion piece published in the Washington Post, President Bush supported rights for migrants calling for a gradual process that would allow undocumented immigrants to earn legal status in the US.

Each year, America sees an influx of people, especially from Latin America and Asia, who travel millions of kilometres to fulfil their ‘American dream’.

Bush’s article came ahead of the release of his new book “Out of Many, One: Portraits of America’s Immigrants”.

The book features multiple portraits of immigrants done by Bush himself.

While, the former leader said that his artwork “may not set the art world stirring,” he said that by sharing the portraits of immigrants, each with “a remarkable story”, he hoped “to humanise the debate on immigration and reform”.

In his book, Bush has drawn portraits of a range of migrants including an unknown young French man who became an American soldier and won the country’s Medal of Honour to the much better-known stories of two migrants, Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger, who fled pre-war Europe and rose to become US secretaries of state.

Bush’s book comes amid a revitalised effort by newly-minted President Joe Biden to reshape the US’ immigration policies.

In February, the Biden administration introduced the US Citizenship Act of 2021.

The bill proposes to eliminate the per-country cap for employment-based green cards. People who have been waiting for a Green Card for over a decade would receive legal permanent residency soon after they are exempted from the visa cap.