Speaking at a Press Conference at the the National Governors Association, Governor Martin O'Malley urges compassion for the children refugees who have flooded in from Central America.
We are not a country that should send children away and send them back to certain death. I believe that we should be guided by the greatest power we have as a people, and that is the power of our principles.
He goes on to say:
“Through all of the great world religions we are told that hospitality to strangers is an essential human dignity,” O’Malley said. “It is a belief that unites all of us. And I have watched the pictures of young kids who have traveled for thousands of miles. I can only imagine, as a father of four, the heartbreak that those parents must have felt in sending their children across a desert where they can be muled and trafficked or used or killed or tortured. But with the hope, the hope, that they would reach the United States and that their children would be protected from what they were facing at home, which was the likelihood of being recruited into gangs and dying a violent death.”
We have to do right not just by these kids but by our kids and protect the children who are here, put them in the least restrictive settings, get them out of these detention centers and these kennels where they are being cooped up, and operate as the good and generous people that we have always been,” he added. “That’s what’s at stake here, as well as the lives of these kids.”
O’Malley said the children deserve due process under U.S. law.
“They should have their ability to make their case for protection and asylum in the United States,” he said.
“I believe that it is contrary to everything that we stand for as a people to try to summarily send back to death, whether it’s in famine; death whether it’s in the middle of the ocean; death whether it’s in a war torn area or death in a place where gangs are the greatest threat to stability and the rule of law and Democratic institutions in this hemisphere.”
These statements just reaffirms my belief that we need Governor O'Malley to run for president in 2016. There are those that say he is too bland to successfully run for president. In my opinion, he shows his passion for America, liberal policies and his faith when he speaks on immigration issues like he did with these statements. He continues to push the moral arguments for why we need immigration reform and why these children are not just a political football to be used in the midterms.
His statements stand in strong contrast with Secretary Hillary Clinton. Here is what Hillary Clinton said about the situation on CNN:
She told moderator CNN's Christiane Amanpour that the United States needs to “send a clear message, just because your child gets across the border doesn’t mean your child gets to stay.”
“They should be sent back as soon as it can be determined who responsible adults in their families are, because there are concerns whether all of them should be sent back," Clinton said. "But I think all of them who can be should be reunited with their families."
In other Martin O'Malley news:
Along with Department of Interior, Maryland auctioning off 80,000 acres for wind power farms.
He continues to help Democrats with the 2014 midterms. He and his PAC are hosting a fundraiser alongside Nancy Pelosi to raise money for Reps. Tim Bishop of New York, Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona and Ann McLane Kuster of New Hampshire, Amanda Renteria, of California, and Andrew Romanoff, of Colorado.
He is speaking at Mississippi's J-J Dinner as well as being the keynote speaker at the Nebraska Annual Democratic Dinner.
He helped negotiate an agreement between John Hopkins and union that will result in an increased minimum wage for workers.
Maryland got a AAA rating from S&P, Fitch and Moody's making them one of only 7 states to have this rating.
In a light-hearted Q&A with the Des Moines Register, he revealed his favorite book,Thomas Merton’s ‘Seven Storey Mountain, and his lack of phobias.