WASHINGTON — Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley took subtle barbs at Hillary Clinton over her evolving stances on immigration during his first post-presidential kickoff event Wednesday afternoon.
At a Q&A event with the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, O’Malley contended that the “greatest indicator” of what a candidate will do on immigration in the future stems from the actions they took “when they had the power.”
Although moderator Javier Palomarez named Clinton personally in his question, O’Malley decidedly refused to namedrop Clinton in response, referring instead to the collective group running for the Democratic nomination.
“There’s a number of us now on the Democratic race for president, and I’m the only one with 15 years of executive experience, and one of the greatest indicators of a persons future actions will be how they acted in the past when they had the power.”
“We didn’t always get it done the first time, but we did pass legislation to give new Americans the ability to get a drivers license however they stood in the naturalization process,” O’Malley said. “We told ICE we weren’t going to honor every detainer that they send because it was obvious to us that it was not the public safety imperative on attached to a lot of those we’d been urging.”
O’Malley went on to tout his passing of the DREAM Act, which was backed up by a public referendum in 2012.
“We passed the DREAM Act in our state and then we defended it at the ballot. As you might understand, the DREAM Act kids don’t have a Super PAC, so we had to raise the dollars to do that ourselves.”
After the discussion with Palomarez, O’Malley deflected a question from ABC News’ Serena Marshall over his plans to differentiate himself with the former secretary of state on the contentious issue.
“I’ve listed the things I did when I had the power, and when I was in office,” O’Malley said. “I intend to offer that same sort of leadership and we’ll let the people decide.”
O’Malley initially pushed back against Clinton’s immigration rhetoric after her speech to a Las Vegas audience in early May when she indicated that President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration didn’t go far enough.
In a response to Clinton’s most recent stance, O’Malley went after her for saying that the undocumented youth who fled Central America should be sent home, which he vehemently disagreed with last summer
“Governor O’Malley stood up when it mattered,” O’Malley’s communications director Lis Smith said at the time. “When most leaders in the Democratic and Republican Parties were saying that we should close our border to children fleeing violence in Central America, he defied them and said that we could not send children ‘back to certain death.’ He was criticized for that position, but leadership is about forging public opinion, not following it.”
Clinton’s event in Las Vegas last month exhibited a complete 180 from her past views on the issue, including stating in 2003 to WABC’s John Gambling that she was “adamantly against illegal immigrants,” along with her muddled 2007 debate response to whether she supported giving illegal immigrants drivers licenses.
WATCH (2:54:10):