The protesters popped up every few minutes with a new round of heckles. Dreamers heckle Clinton in Maryland

COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Hillary Clinton was heckled repeatedly during a rally Thursday in potential 2016 rival Martin O’Malley’s home state of Maryland, when more than a dozen pro-immigrant activists staggered their protests so they lasted throughout most of her speech.

The rolling protests by members of the group United We Dream came during a rally at the University of Maryland for Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown. They also came nearly a week after so-called Dreamers interrupted Clinton’s speech in North Carolina, where she was campaigning for Sen. Kay Hagan; the activists reportedly said they were mishandled by officials at that rally when they were being led out.


Clinton, who has said she will decide on a White House run by early next year, has repeatedly been targeted by Dreamers since she re-emerged in politics as a campaign surrogate this fall. The activists are frustrated with President Barack Obama’s delay in taking executive action on immigration reforms, and they are pushing Clinton to be more outspoken on the issue.

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Hispanics are a fast-growing voting bloc, and the Dreamers want to send a signal that Democrats shouldn’t take their support for granted, despite congressional Republicans’ blocking of comprehensive immigration reform in the House.

The protesters on Thursday fanned out around the gymnasium where the rally was held, popping up every few minutes with a new round of heckles.

“Immigration is an important issue in this state,” Clinton said, as the first wave of protesters — a cluster of six people hoisting signs that read, “Choose Families Over Politics” — shouted and drowned her out. They were led out of the gymnasium by officers.

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“If they’d just waited a little while I was getting to the DREAM Act,” Clinton said, to some laughs from the crowd. She went on to praise the legislation, which passed at the ballot box in Maryland in 2012. The act was championed by O’Malley, Maryland’s governor, and it allows some undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates for college.

A few minutes later, in a bleachers section of the gymnasium, an activist started shouting Clinton down.

“I’m a strong supporter of comprehensive immigration reform,” said Clinton, who also called it a “moral” issue. “We have to treat everyone with dignity and compassion.” That shouting activist also was led out of the gym by officers, still protesting loudly as she left.

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Clinton again started talking, and then a third, smaller wave began. Toward the end of her speech there was a fourth, and then a fifth.

“I think she avoided the question like she has in the other events where we’ve tried to connect with her before,” said Greisa Martinez, an organizer with United We Dream who said she drew more than two dozen people to the event.

“I know that Hillary Clinton is a very intelligent woman and she knows exactly what we are talking about… it’s not about the DREAM Act and it’s not about immigration reform…it’s about administrative relief, and so to hear her use that as a cop out to” avoid answering was frustrating, she said.

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Clinton never seemed rattled by the protesters, although the rolling wave had a jarring effect on the speech. The episode underscored not just that she will continue to face protests until the White House moves on this issue, potentially after Election Day next week, but also how O’Malley has become a voice on the issue in recent months.

With social issues like gay marriage now considered settled within the Democratic Party, the issue of immigration reform and its many components remains a space for people in the party to carve out on the left. It’s an issue that bedeviled Clinton in the 2008 campaign, when, during a Democratic debate in late 2007, she fumbled a question about whether she supported then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s plan to give undocumented immigrants drivers’ licenses.

For Clinton, the Dreamer protesters are figuring out new tactics just as her window to avoid taking stands on certain issues will come to a close, should she run for president. She’s said she’ll make her decision at the beginning of next year, but the media will turn its attention to 2016 almost immediately after the midterms.

The Maryland governor, who already is laying the groundwork for a presidential run of 2016, made himself a champion of immigration advocates when he blasted Obama over the summer for the handling of the surge in unaccompanied children sneaking across the U.S. border. Many of the children were said to be trying to escape violence in their South American countries.

The Obama administration has been in many cases deporting the children to their home country. Clinton, asked about the crisis at a CNN town hall over the summer during her book tour, said the children “should be sent back” when their families are identified to keep them safe, a line that ricocheted online and angered immigration advocates.

She’s since been approached by Dreamers on a rope line in Iowa and elsewhere.

Thursday’s protests capped an event that began as a reminder of a past political problem for Clinton as opposed to a future one. Clinton was there to stump for Brown, the only statewide African-American candidate Democrats have this cycle, and a potentially strong surrogate for whoever the Democratic nominee is for president in 2016.

The presidential primary race between Clinton and Obama split along racial lines by the end, as African-American voters moved toward the then-Illinois Senator after he won the Iowa caucuses. In the upcoming presidential race, in which Clinton will likely be the dominant Democratic frontrunner, Hispanic voters will be critical.

Earlier in the rally, O’Malley praised Clinton. She heaped praise back on him, ticking through his record on issues such as guns and gay marriage. The picture was supposed to be that of a happy Democratic family, but at times the awkwardness of Clinton appearing at the same event with the only potential 2016 rival who is actively campaigning for himself was clear.

An aide to O’Malley said the two spoke briefly at the event backstage. O’Malley was not listed on the initial release about the event, but aides to both him and Clinton said he was always expected to speak at it. He also spoke at a fundraiser that Bill Clinton headlined for Brown weeks ago, after Hillary Clinton bowed out when their granddaughter was born.

O’Malley tried to whip up the crowd when he spoke, talking about his work with Brown and saying, the people “you’re all here to see, Anthony Brown and Hillary Clinton,” were about to come out. He repeated it for good measure: “Let me say that again: Anthony Brown and Hillary Clinton.”

There was no question, when Brown, who has a strong lead in the polls, was on stage, where his focus was. He thanked O’Malley for being his partner in government. But he also drew attention to Clinton, introducing her as “Charlotte’s grandmother” and saying, “She’s a great leader, and a great foot soldier.” When he first came onstage, he asked, “Are you ready for Hillary?”

Once the immigration protests quieted down, Clinton made her way through the basics of her midterms stump speech, continuing with a line that cleaned up on a statement she made at a Boston rally last week about corporations and businesses not creating jobs.

She said that people “have to ask yourself, what is the Republican alternative” to improving the economy. And she blasted “more trickle-down economics and tax breaks” for companies that “ship jobs overseas while you’re paying the freight.”

Republicans, she said, “are running campaigns based on fear…[what people do when they’ve] run out of ideas and run out of hope.”

Brown’s campaign put the attendance at 2,500 people in a press release. But there did not appear to be more than 1,000 people in the gym.