Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley called GOP frontrunner Donald Trump’s criticisms of illegal immigration from Mexico “hate speech” during an appearance on Fusion with Jorge Ramos.

Ramos brought up a question from Facebook: “What does he think or has to say about Donald Trump’s comments on Mexico? Does he agree with them?”

The question doesn’t distinguish between Mexico and criminal aliens from Mexico — Trump has repeatedly explained that he has “great, great love for the Mexican people” and respect for the country — but that appears to be deliberate on the network’s part. Ramos has announced his support for unlimited Mexican immigration at every opportunity. Many Mexicans nurse a nationalist, racial grudge against America and see themselves as a conquering army: 58 percent believe the American Southwest should be Mexican territory.

“I think all of us have an obligation to speak out against hate-spewing rhetoric and language,” O’Malley said, emphasizing each word with an odd clawing motion at the camera, “when it enters our public arena.”

“I said the other day at La Raza, if Donald Trump wants to run for president on an immigrant-bashing platform, he should go back to the 1840s and run for the president of the Know-Nothing party,” O’Malley said to an audience of Hispanics likely unfamiliar with American history, especially a 19th century movement that wanted to keep out Irish immigrants. (O’Malley perhaps still takes it personally.)

Americans shouldn’t be allowed to make critical but accurate remarks about foreigners who openly defy U.S. law, O’Malley said.

“That sort of speech does damage to us as a nation, and I believe all of us should push back against it. Including, I might add, members of the Republican party,” he said. “Far too many of whom are appallingly silent in the face of this sort of hate speech. And I think it has no place in our public arena.”

“Hate speech,” whatever that may be, enjoys First Amendment protection and is rhetorical bluster, not a legal category. O’Malley’s remarks take on a more sinister, extreme tone when one considers he has built his platform of unilateral executive amnesty for all and unlimited immigration under the slogan, “New Americans.”

“Welcoming New Americans to Rebuild The American Dream” doesn’t explain why O’Malley thinks white and black Americans destroyed it, nor why it’s necessary for Mexicans to rebuild it. But he makes it clear that Americans shouldn’t be discussing who comes into our country and should not be permitted to criticize the enormous economic, social, and cultural damage that politically-engineering mass immigration does to their lives and their children’s lives.

Email Katie at kmchugh@breitbart.com.