O'Malley is light-years ahead of both Hillary and Sanders on immigration/refugee issues.
Sanders voted against the 2007 immigration reform bill. He didn't stand up for the child refugees from Central America last summer. He had to be pushed on Syrian refugees (did he even finally agree to taking in 45K like we were asked to?). His immigration platform has some serious gaps in it. (I posted a comparison at one point here on DU). He's made some unfortunate comments about immigrants taking jobs from Americans in the past. http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/07/30/3686282/bernie-sanders-immigration/
Unlike Bernie, Hillary did support the 2007 immigration bill in Congress, however, Hillary is more problematic for me. She has yet to put out an immigration platform. She has skipped multiple immigration forums/events organized by immigration groups in early states unlike O'Malley and Sanders. We really have no idea where she stands on the specifics of this issue. And this is one issue where specifics matter. What does she want to do about Operation Streamline? What about making sure that all immigrants get to have their hearings translated for them and be able to have an attorney to argue their case? Plus, her record on immigration is murky. In 2008, she attacked Obama from the right on immigration reform and said that immigrants were going to take jobs from Americans. In her Senate run, she made some really ugly comments about being against illegal immigrants. She personally called up NY Gov. Spitzer and asked him to kill the driver's license bill for immigrants because it would hurt her politically. She put her own political career above the needs of immigrants which should be unforgivable. She wanted to send the child refugees back to central america without due process. So, where does she stand? When will we see an immigration platform from her?
This is a fair criticism from O'Malley. There is a big difference between the candidates in this area and it is a huge one for me.
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