Los Angeles, CA -- Hillary Clinton was criticized by immigration advocates this week after standing by comments she made as Secretary of State in 2014. At the height of the migrant surge last summer, she supported expedited deportation of unaccompanied minors from Central America. The criticism comes as rival Democratic candidate Martin O’Malley calls for more and earlier Democratic debates, helping him highlight what his campaign says is a more progressive immigration policy. Meanwhile, the unaccompanied minors crisis still dogs the Obama administration, as human rights advocates are ratchet up pressure to end what the call the overdue and unnecessary imprisonment of mothers and children. At a presidential campaign event last Tuesday in Las Vegas , Nevada, Clinton criticized ongoing family detentions, but stood by her her previous comments on deporting migrants saying that the administration needed to “send a message” in 2014.
"[We] had an emergency and it was very important to send a message to families in Central America, 'do not let your children take this very dangerous journey' because a lot of children did not make it. [...] So I think it was the responsible message. Now I think we have a different problem, the emergency is over. We need to be moving to try to get people out of these detention centers, particularly the women and children,” Clinton told reporters.
The youth-led immigration advocacy group United We Dream reffirmed their opposition to Clinton’s handling of the migrant crisis, saying that the White House “message” was misguided and may have denied asylum seekers their day in court. The group cited Vox’s Dara Lind , who argued last year that “Acting quickly and decisively, as Clinton wants, would basically mean ending the asylum process in the U.S. as we know it.”
“To be clear, Sec. Clinton said that refugee children from Central America should be sent back into violence,” said Cristina Jimenez, managing director of United we Dream, in a press release.
The group also criticized Clinton’s most recent comments as patronizing.
“It’s also disappointing that after more than a year, she’s still unable to put herself in the shoes of parents having to ‘choose’ between the threat of losing their children to forced gang recruitment, violence and possible death, or doing everything possible to keep them safe,” Jimenez said. “The journey that many Central American children have been forced to take is undoubtedly dangerous, but to place the blame on parents and offer them a lecture is patronizing and wrong.”
Pleased By Not Appeased
In a previous Las Vegas, Nevada, visit on May 5th Clinton calmed immigration advocates who were wary of her candidacy. She pledged to continue DACA and DAPA, Obama’s deferred action programs that shield millions of immigrants in the country from deportation. “I would do everything possible under the law to go even further,” she said . Two weeks later, the Clinton campaign named United We Dream advocacy and policy director Lorella Praeli as the Latino outreach director of her campaign (effectively poaching her from the organization now run by Jimenez).
Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice hailed the announcement as "another powerful indication that the Clinton campaign gets how important Latino voters are in the 2016 election and that immigrant justice is key to winning over a community that will prove decisive in numerous swing states," who was quoted by Fusion .
Praeli has served as Clinton’s immigration hawk. Most recently, she took Jeb Bush to task over using the term “anchor baby.”
“If Republicans continue to wonder how to label these children, Hillary has already made it clear to them: They are not ‘anchor babies.’ They are babies. They are our neighbors. They are our families. They are part of our communities. They are American citizens. Period,” Praeli said in a statement .
Yet Praeli's credentials have not shielded her new boss from the criticism of her former colleagues at United We Dream. While the group also denounced Jeb Bush’s “anchor” baby comment as a slur this week, they went after Clinton, too. In addition to criticizing her comments, the pointed to one of Clinton's financial backers, a prison corporation, which involved in managing immigration jails.
Asylum Seekers Deserve Lawyers, Democrats Need Debates, Says O'Malley
Democratic presidential hopeful and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley thinks that he can out-progressive Hillary Clinton in at least two ways. First, he has released a detailed six-page immigration plan that includes controversial items like health care subsidy eligibility for undocumented immigrants. Second, his campaign says that he showed stronger support for the unaccompanied minors during the spike in crossing last summer.
At a campaign event in Los Angeles on Thursday, O’Malley told the Latin Times that his first instinct was give them due process, not expedited removal.
“I think they certainly deserve lawyers to make that case for asylum for them,” he said, after addressing the 2015 National Convention of the Young Democrats of America.
Unlike in criminal proceedings, suspected immigration violators don’t have the right to a defense lawyer. Immigration rights advocates say that many bona fide asylum seekers are deported not because their claims are weak, but because they fumble their testimony and don’t have access to attorneys. Clinton has said that asylum seekers need “more resources” but hasn’t gone as far as endorsing full legal representation. Other aspects of their policy are more similar.
“We’ve had such a broken immigration system for so long that we’re in danger of creating a whole subclass of people and we need to wipe the slate clean. We need to give people a pathway to citizenship and move forward here,” O’Mally said, adding “Donald Trump talks about self-deporting 11 million new Americans. I can only imagine that his climate change proposal would be to build an arc and start marching in animals.”
Clinton and O’Malley agree on many aspects of immigration policy, like offering a pathway to citizenship for the country’s 11.2 million unauthorized immigrants and using executive action to shield many of them from deportation.
But there are some differences, and O’Malley is eager to highlight them in debates against his opponents, including Vt. Senator Bernie Sanders. O’Malley and Sanders have openly criticized the DNC for limiting the primary debates to 6 events held late in the electoral calendar. Their campaigns have discussed possible alternatives to the current debate timeline, including bucking the DNC rules.
“I’d like to see us start having debates. [...] In the absence of debates then we’re left with the daily news about our contest being all about questions that only [Hillary Clinton] and her lawyers can answer,” he told reporters in Los Angeles, referring to the e-mail scandal that has dogged the former Secretary of State’s campaign.
When asked if he’d defy DNC rules barring unsanctioned debates he said to “stay tuned,” adding that he hoped party officials would reconsider their debate schedule at meetings in Minnesota next week.
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