Finishing Las Vegas swing, O’Malley calls for immigration reform

By Scott Lucas

Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2015 | 10:45 a.m.

In a speech this morning before the group Hispanics in Politics, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, sought to animate his sagging campaign heading into the Oct. 13 debate.

“I intend to win,” said O’Malley, who argued for changes to what he called a “callous, irrational, inhumane, and unjust” immigration system.

Defending a plan to legalize the status of undocumented immigrants, O’Malley said, “We need to get 11 million of these new Americans out of the shadow economy and into the light.”

O’Malley also criticized Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton obliquely, saying that Democratic voters had a choice between “a candidate of the past and one who looks to the future.”

He showed little compunction about attacking Republican frontrunner Donald Trump by name, calling him “a carnival barker whose hate is only exceeded by his paranoia” and saying that his “xenophobia has infected the Republican party.”

The Nevada caucus will be a critical test for the former mayor of Baltimore, who badly trails Clinton, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and Vice President Joe Biden (who may decide to enter the race as early as this weekend) in national polls.

O’Malley has been bidding for the support of two constituencies among Nevada Democrats: union members and Latinos. On Monday, he spoke to members of the Culinary Union and the SEIU.

On a previous trip, he joined union members in a protest outside the Trump International Hotel. O’Malley has recently added campaign staff in Nevada as well.

In today’s speech, O’Malley also called for stricter gun control, including an assault weapons ban and a licensing system for firearms. He also defended President Barack Obama’s record on the Middle East, saying that “America leads best when it works in coalitions.”

In what appeared to be an unscripted moment, O’Malley showed a flash of the personality that led The Washington Post to call him a “data-driven technocrat,” highlighting a change in veterans’ discharge forms that added a line for email contact information, which he said helped better provide services to returning service members.