Martin O'Malley presidential campaign, 2016/Immigration

	; ; Former presidential candidate; Martin O'Malley
	Political offices: ; Governor of Maryland; (2007-2015); Mayor of Baltimore; (1999-2007);
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Martin O'Malley suspended his presidential campaign on February 1, 2016.^[1]

This page was current as of the 2016 election.

In his prepared remarks for his speech at the Nevada Democratic Party Dinner on January 6 2016, Martin O'Malley criticized the raid on persons from Central America residing in the U.S. without legal permission. He said, “The answer is not to deport mothers and children who walked thousands of miles to ask for refuge. The answer is to extend [Temporary Protective Status] to those who have fled from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.”^[2]

O'Malley tweeted on December 24, 2015, his opposition to a planned raid on persons from Central America residing in the U.S. without legal permission, writing, “A Christmas Refugee Roundup sounds like something @realDonaldTrump would concoct. Remember: Jesus was a refugee child who fled death gangs.”^[3]

On December 15, 2015, O'Malley spoke with “two Bangladeshi men who were recently released from immigrant detention after taking part in a hunger strike that began on Thanksgiving” before speaking at the National Immigrant Integration Conference. During his speech, he said, “Let us not only end family detention, but all immigrant detention—unless there is a grave risk to our national security. These men who were denied due process in the growing detention camps we have across the country.” In the same speech he also highlighted his record on immigration as governor of Maryland. He noted Maryland’s effort to protect children fleeing violence in Central America, he said, “There were some governors around the country who spoke of these children as if they were a swarm of invading jackrabbits. We took a different approach in Maryland. I said that we would care for these refugee children.” ^[4]

On December 10, 2015, O'Malley visited the Tent City Jail in Arizona, an outdoor jail facility, where he advocated for the “end to immigrant detention and internment camps” in the U.S. According to Latin Times, O’Malley also implied that unlike him, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders "pander to Latinos, only speaking to the issues of immigrant rights in Latino states like Nevada, but not in states not Iowa and and [sic] New Hampshire.”

O'Malley’s senior adviser on immigration, Gabriela Domenzain, said on December 3, 2015, that O’Malley supported the hunger strike of more than 150 asylum-seekers demonstrating to bring attention to the immigrant detention system. "This is a symptom of the larger problem, which is that we are inhumanely detaining, without due process, thousands of immigrants that should not be in those conditions,” Domenzain said.^[5]

At the second Democratic primary debate, on November 14, 2015, O'Malley voiced his support for comprehensive immigration reform that included a path to citizenship for those in the country without documentation. He said "[W]e've actually been focusing on border security to the exclusion of talking about comprehensive immigration reform. In fact, if more border security and these -- and more and more deportations were going to bring our Republican brothers and sisters to the table, it would have happened long ago. The fact of the matter is -- and let's say it in our debate, because you'll never hear this from that immigration-bashing carnival barker, Donald Trump, the truth of the matter is... The truth of the matter is, net immigration from Mexico last year was zero. Fact check me. Go ahead. Check it out. But the truth of the matter is, if we want wages to go up, we've got to get 11 million of our neighbors out of off the book shadow economy, and into the full light of an American economy. That's what our parents and grandparents always did. That's what we need to do as a nation. Yes, we must protect our borders. But there is no substitute for having comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship for 11 million people, many of whom have known no other country but the United States of America. Our symbol is the Statue of Liberty. It is not a barbed wire fence."^[6]

O'Malley opposed the Obama administration's decision to deport children who illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in August 2014. The administration then claimed that O'Malley refused "to open a group facility in Westminster, Md., for some of the Central American children after saying that they should not be sent back to their home countries," according to Politico. O'Malley called the administration's comments political "spin" and clarified that "he was warning the White House against that specific location because it had some 'hateful graffiti' outside and that there were 'more hospitable settings' available."^[7]

When asked about immigration reform in 2013, O'Malley said, "There is such a compelling business case. Set aside compassion, set aside justice, set aside fairness, if you must. And if you go only on the business case for immigration reform, the United States of America is losing money and jobs every day by not having fixed our archaic immigration policies. This is low-hanging fruit, if you will. It’s not what other countries are doing to us. It’s what we’re not doing for ourselves, in recognizing the tremendous power and the economic imperative of immigration reform."^[8]

In May 2011, O'Malley signed a bill that extended "in-state tuition breaks to illegal immigrants at the state’s colleges and universities," according to The Washington Post.^[9]

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