Hello everybody, welcome to the spring debate on immigration. Thank you all very much for coming. This debate is being hosted by the Transpolitical Forum, so thank you very much all for attending.
Before we start, I just want to outline the structure of the debate so you all know how this is going to go. So in the beginning, each team, first we're just going to go through some introductions of the chairs and the debaters, and then we'll move into the constructive arguments, so each team will have four minutes to present. their overall side and their case and just what they're arguing in this debate.
Then we'll move into a cross-examination period where the teams will have a chance to ask each other questions and then they will have just a back-and-forth sort of debate between each other there, a conversation. Then we'll have some questions from the moderators and then we'll move into some brief midway summaries from each team where they will have a chance to either give a summary of what they've stated so far or they may use this time to... to respond to anything that our opponents said so far in the debate.
At this point, we'll move into another session of moderator questions, and then we will finish off with audience questions and just try to run out as many audience questions as we possibly can. So throughout the debate, if you have anything you'd like to say, I encourage you to make a note of it in your head and try to pose that question later on. As many questions as we can get, that would just make it a much more interesting discussion.
So now just to introduce myself, my name is Rene. I'm going to be one of your moderators tonight. I'm one of the associate justices on the Judicial Board in ASUCI, and I'm a part of TPF, and it's my pleasure to be here with you all tonight.
Good evening. I'm going to be the other moderator. My name is Carl Olson, and I'm the executive chair for TPF for this year. On the left side of the stage, we have the college Republicans, and on the right side, we have the college Democrats.
And I will now ask that everyone up there introduce themselves real quick. Hello, my name is Kimo Gandel. I'm a college Republican. I'm the external vice president of their organization.
And I'm interested in political science, and I'm really happy to be here tonight because debate is my forte. My name is Robert Petrosian. I used to be the chair of the UCI College of Publicans about two years ago. Currently, I'm the chief of staff of the California College of Publicans.
And I'm also a fourth year. This is my last debate. And I guess, interesting fact about myself. I drive a Buick.
Hello, my name is Nicole Dunger. I am currently on the board of the College of Democrats as Outreach Chair. I study political science and educational sciences and I look forward to the debate. Hi, my name is Cassius.
I'm on the board of the College of Democrats. I'm on the board of the College of Democrats as well as our Vice President. And I'm double majoring in political science and urban studies, so kind of like politics and then the mental health and policy. All right, so with those introductions out of the way, we will open the floor to the argument for the amnesty. College Democrats, all you.
It is important to first pose the question, what is amnesty? Amnesty is an official pardon granted and created for people who have been convicted of political offenses. The current question posed regarding granting amnesty to undocumented... should not be focused solely on legality, but be considered politically as well as morally.
The necessity of providing amnesty is derived from the political installation of laws based on racial fear causing for the politics and morals of humanity. United States to be called to question. In doing this, labels have been placed upon human beings and granted amnesty for undocumented, we would be overlooking the immoral label placed upon them as illegal and providing them with a path for fluid assimilation into American society. As we debate the issue of amnesty for undocumented, we must not forget that the very laws we refer to have been a product of racist political rhetoric.
Immigration has been defined by racism and xenophobia for decades. In fact, here's a little history lesson. The term illegal immigrant originated from the term and it's been used in the United States for decades. As the British slur towards Jews who are fleeing Nazi Germany without government authorization.
And as Democrats, we believe that a gradual process for amnesty should be implemented for all undocumented migrants currently residing in the United States. Our country has been built upon the notion of an American dream and an idea of equal opportunity. for all. American morals, I believe we can all love and appreciate.
In the development of laws based upon racist political rhetoric, demonizing human beings, and preventing equal opportunity for all, we are working against what our... country stands for. We, as college Democrats, refuse to accept leaders who are emboldened to trample the rights and liberties of those working to become part of the American dream.
In the landmark 2012 Supreme Court case on Arizona's immigration law, Justice Kennedy wrote, as a general rule, it is not a crime for a removable alien to remain present in the United States. The court also ruled that it was not a crime to seek or engage in unauthorized employment marking a firm affirmation of the spirit of accepting undocumented immigrants into our country. I mention this court ruling because it symbolizes a critical moment in the legal debate over immigration.
This charged rhetoric we often hear, whether it be the use of illegal immigrant or the slightly more tempered, unauthorized alien. This obscures the principles of economic justice that lurk in the spirit of our law. Our Constitution does not discriminate the provision of freedom based on immigration status, and we do not criminalize the bodies that choose to enter this country, regardless of what means they use to do so.
In this same spirit, we contend that the people... we speak so casually of as undocumented migrants, our neighbors, our friends, our American brothers and sisters. We contend that these people have lived here as our equals in all their name, and that it's time we recognize them as fellow Americans. Thank you. I want to hear the opening speech from the College Republicans.
Our speech is going to make our platform clear. Law and order. And to put it bluntly, illegal aliens are doing exactly what their name implies.
Breaking the law. Title 8 section... The article 1325 specifically explains that illegal entry and continued residence in the United States is in fact illegal.
Now let's look at the facts. Illegal immigrants are a burden on the economy. A meta-analysis compiled by the CDO found that illegal immigrants... cost the economy up to $100 billion per year, even with their payment of the sales tax taken into account. And this is a net loss both based on money and based off of social services provided, such as health care and education, et cetera.
And this will raise unemployment and also harm low-skilled workers that are already here, some of them being legal immigrants. And number two, illegal aliens commit crime. Some academics have skewed numbers here and there, like in a recent study that came out of UC Riverside.
However, considering that illegal aliens do not go through any background checks when they enter the country, that means that the real data here speaks for itself. And averages for violent crime and property crime and even rape spiked and even doubled in sanctuary cities after these policies have been implemented. And the Department of Homeland Security found that 62% of released aliens in sanctuary cities have criminal records.
And also, most shockingly, the Government Accountability Office found that... that 27% of federal inmates are unauthorized immigrants. Number three, amnesty is unfair to legal immigrants who are already here or trying to get here.
The traditional wait time to enter the country legally is anywhere from five to 10 years, sometimes even more. And amnesty sends the message that it's okay to cut in line and deny people who have tried to do it the right way an opportunity to get here legally. And it's a sign of disrespect to those who follow the law. And it also incentivizes.
even more illegal immigration and ensures that this problem continues in the long run as opposed to ever being dealt with through comprehensive policy. The democratic solution of amnesty would only kick the can down the road and would ignore the economic, criminal, and ethical problems that stem from illegal immigration. And it would also cost $2.3 trillion in order for amnesty to be implemented, according to the Heritage Foundation.
If we pass this, our solvency will be at stake. Mortgage rates will skyrocket. that will spike. Schools will be defunded, like this one right here, that we all love.
And also, as an econ major, I could say that this plan is a fiscal nightmare. And the plan that we have as publicans is threefold. Number one, we need to build a wall.
The CRS has found that there is a negative linear association between illegal immigration and hash and border wall. The first step to solving this problem is to stop the inflow of illegal immigrants. so that we could deal with the people who are already here and also stop this from being a long term problem 10, 20, 30 years down the road as it has been the last 30 years. Number two, visa enforcement.
About 40% of the people coming in here illegally come here to visa overstays. And to address this, we should implement a biometric entry-exit plan program in order to know who is in here, and to make sure that the people who have overstayed their visas would be able to be moved in a timely manner so that they don't overstay. And Congress appointed funds, appropriated funds for this in 2004 at the recommendation of the State Government Commission, and I believe it's time that we actually implement this. Additionally, in terms of the way that we would integrate legal immigrants. We want to encourage legal immigration, and we want to make sure that those who come here legally do so based on merit.
And we want to make sure that they are placed into a system where they are able to succeed and make something of themselves as opposed to be stuck in a cycle of poverty. And instead of welfare, we champion individual development accounts, which match earnings dollar by dollar for up to four years. And those who are on ideas-Thank you, Colvin, Republicans. Your time is up. Thank you.
Thank you. move into some cross-examination since the college democrats opened up i will allow them to begin the examination Perfect. Alright, so you propose amnesty.
So please tell me, has there ever been a case in the history of the world where it is possible to economically integrate 12 million people with a blink of an eye? Is there? Let's hear it from Mark.
So our position is not in favor of a blink immediately. We acknowledge that that position is... So what is it? We acknowledge that there is a So our position, like I was saying, is not in favor of blanket amnesty overnight. We acknowledge that this is something that needs to take time, that we have a large population of undocumented immigrants living in this.
The estimates put that between 11 and 2. And these people cannot be integrated overnight. We are in favor of a process for that integration, so that these people, these people that have been working as our neighbors... So you'd agree with Donald Trump then that we should have an integration process but enforce current immigration law? Yes?
Because that's the current what Satchwo wants, they want immigration. So would you agree to that? I believe that it has to do with the current laws that are put in place for integration.
They make it extremely difficult for people who are are the language on the wait list for 16 years, they make it extremely difficult and extremely unaccessible to certain people. And so we are. So speaking of accessibility, one last question.
You talk a lot about accessibility. accessibility. Yet the government's been claiming this war on poverty, many of which illegal immigrants have been put into. And this war on poverty has been going on since the 1950s, and we spent $22 trillion on it.
And it hasn't changed one bit. So do you really think that integrating, quote, unquote, integrating people, deciding we'll do anything but put an entirely new class of citizens, those who are permanently impoverished in the population. So let's start by bringing that first of all you, the writer, down.
First of all, you're talking about our current immigration policy. Many undocumented immigrants could be sponsored for a green card, but because they are presently undocumented, their status cannot be adjusted. So even though the process has provisions for them to...
to apply for legal status, they cannot just because of their... The question was on how... No, no, no. And so that just addresses one part of your statement about the current policy in our country. We'd also like to break down some claims that you're making about immigration, poverty, crime, and how that affects our economy.
So when we look at... When we look at immigrants in this country, between 1990 and 2010, there was a huge influx of immigration. We've seen immigration increase 5% of our population.
Our population has had a 5% increase in the number of immigrants that compose a bad name. However, in that same period, there has been a disproportionate, unprecedented decrease in crime. What do you say to that? Well, I say that in terms of people who are coming into your league...
I say time is up for this portion. Oh, this was very good. So it seems like the conversation is starting to shift into sort of an economic sort of playing field.
So we're going to give the rebuttal portion, the start, to the called Republicans. Once again, you will, each team will have four minutes and then there will be another. set of cross examinations.
All right, so I'm just going to make this clear. That's the definition of a correlation without causation fallacy. Let me tell you what happened. In the 1990s, there was a massive economic boom. And during that time, we saw unprecedented development in the United States.
What you're saying is a big vague assertion drafted by academics to substantiate some sort of race-baiting strategy. Really what happened is America, under policies that allowed the free market to move, America was able to develop its people. And because we were able to develop our infrastructure, we were able to develop people's access to that infrastructure, people were able to succeed. Not because immigrants are suddenly good people. That makes no sense, and there's no empirical evidence to substantiate that.
...in this country or not, then of course, on average, you're going to be much more likely to commit crimes. In fact, a lot of people who do come here illegally, they're actually part of transnational gangs. And that's why you see crimes spike in a lot of places, like in San...
recently for example and other cities as well that have employed a sanctuary city legislation. So like on the broad sense what you're saying might be true but if you actually look beneath the surface it's filled with fallacies and it's completely false and if anything proves it or point rather well. I would like to propose the 2007 study on immigration that reported that immigrant men, both gay and legal immigrant men, ages 18 to 39 was 0.7% incarcerated, while the native born men from the same age group was 3.5%.
And when we're talking about immigrants in our economy, specifically undocumented immigrants, we're looking for that kind of clarification. The documented immigrants in the United States make up a disproportionate representation in our labor force compared to their native-born counterparts. So compared to the population of the documented immigrants that exist in this country, they represent a disproportionate number of people in our workforce. So we're all through an economy made of economic members, so you might appreciate it.
A lot of economists that analyze legal immigration and documented immigration look at the labor gap that exists in our labor force. The gap in skill, where there's a lot of jobs. particularly in the service industry, that Native American simply do not fill. Undocumented immigrants fill that at a disproportionate rate.
And actually, actually undocumented immigrants in our workforce increases the availability of middle class and higher paying jobs simply because the amount of low wage jobs in our workforce enables more higher paying jobs. Not right now, unless you have a criminal record. However, since last time Republicans asked the bulk of the questions, Democrats, you have the floor to ask the first question. Why do you think the use of the term illegal immigrant is acceptable? Alright, so I'm going to make it clear.
You can skew words however you want going back in time. I can say anything. I can even make a lioness word. You know why?
Because originally that's an English word, so apparently it's offensive. I'm going to tell you why. Because they're committing an illegal action. There's a specific staff toward the code that shows so.
And let me make it clear. If you break the law, you're illegal. So if I go and rob a mirror over there, then I'm committing an illegal action.
action and I should be tried as such. That's common sense. So I'm advocating for this because it's pointless for us to spend an endless amount of time arguing diction and words. We should be advocating policy.
Because at the end of the day your constituents are not worried about if somebody's offended. They're worried about if America becomes a better place. Something that the Democrats have never done.
Also keep in mind that illegal alien is the legal term that's used by the US government and that's also the term that we agreed on before this debate. So I don't think it makes any sense for us to devolve into a battle over addiction where we should be battling over actual policy as was agreed. Thanks. So by the way, sorry we forgot to mention this earlier. We're going to ask that there's no audience interaction until we give you a mic during the audience question portion.
So please avoid clapping, snapping, or especially heckling. Anyone who is heckling will be given a warning. And the second time, we'll gladly ask them to leave.
Thank you. So. Maybe the current legal term used, this was derived, as Cassius mentioned earlier, in 1939 as British lords were to choose between Nazi Germany.
So the current policy... is developed through, like, based off of racial fears. Though it may be legal, that does not mean it's not something that shouldn't be changed.
Alright, so as you... Of course not. So you're talking about legal terminology.
We also want to remind you of other points that we made in our opening statements, specifically the Supreme Court case in 2012 that asked about Arizona's ending that law... They specifically were talking about undocumented migrants in our country. And in that court, in the spirit of that decision, we're saying that the presence of one's body in this country is not illegal. And that's a point that I'm going to reiterate time and time again if you continue to use that word.
Because the existence... of somebody in this country, as opposed to their physical actions that they've taken, is not lawful. So when you talk about the legal, that is a legal term and you're misusing that term. And just to, wait, we misused the term that the law stipulates, that's what you're saying.
Just to refute the point that Rob made earlier, in 2016, in April 2016, the Library of Congress and the Congressional Budget Office stopped using the term legal. the term illegal alien because they recognize that that term not only implies a negative connotation on people in this country, but that it's simply not accurate. Yeah, okay, so I'm going to specify that right now. The reason we talk about the difference between illegal and unauthorized is a statutory problem. That's the reason those officers use it.
Not because they're race-baiting people. There's absolutely no evidence to substantiate that. Now let's look at the other claim to crime. Valid.
Somehow we're Nazis. That's probably the most thing I've ever heard Allow me to clarify we've been using the term illegal immigrant since the founding of our country It was debates when the Federalists began to talk it was debate up until the time of the Civil War in fact actually during that Time there was the no nothing movement which occurred under Abraham Lincoln and had the Civil War not distracted We would have seen a significant discourse happening in that time. So it occurred way before the 1930s I don't know what you're you think immigration is the problem that just came about in 1930s.
That's ridiculous I'll be Thank you, that is time. Thank you very much. At this point we're now going to pose a few questions from the moderators for each debater team. So each question will be intended to be answered by both teams. We begin with the first question.
So many Republican figures have regarded the so-called anchor baby concept as a potential to legitimately undermine immigration enforcement, while opponents on the left have regarded birthright citizenship as being rooted in the 14th Amendment. amendment of the Constitution and regard the anchor babies issue as a theory or myth. Several democratic figures have expressed that the issue in their view is keeping families together while the Republicans have claimed that this leads to many legal discrepancies. My question is, should the children of undocumented immigrants legally become US citizens at birth and how should the presence of these children affect policy regarding the amnesty of undocumented parents?
Thank you. For this question we'll have the Republicans begin, and for the next question we'll have the Democrats begin. Alright, so there's two parts to this question.
Question one is a philosophical one. Should it? And part two of it is, is it? Is it? Yes, because the Supreme Court defined it that way, and the Republican Party, unlike other parties, does believe in enforcing what the courts say.
Should it? No, they shouldn't be. And the reason is quite simple.
When you have birthright citizenship, you incentivize people to come here illegally, have their children, and give them American citizenship. American citizenship should be something you fight for, something you strive for. Immigrants shouldn't be granted just based on birthright. Now, do I think there should be an integration process?
Absolutely. There should be an integration process. But that integration process does not encourage us giving it out willy-nilly. And I know the Democrats are gonna try to raise faith and say, this is just a force that affects Hispanics. The answer to that is no, it has nothing to do with Mexicans, Hispanics.
It's not a race question. It is a matter of public policy and respect this American flag and for the American citizenship that is granted to us. You claim that American citizenship should be something fought for, not something provided for. Did you fight for your American citizenship?
Being born in the United States of America, you fought for your American citizenship. have been born on American grounds. You have been raised in America with American morals and American views.
You've gone to American schools. You've been opened up to the opportunities that are within America and they should be granted to you. If you were born here, you cannot change the fact that you were born here.
We'd also like to reiterate the point that when you're talking about immigrants in this country, specifically undocumented immigrants, the children of undocumented immigrants, parents of undocumented immigrants, Who came here without documentation, what you might call their children, are more than twice as likely to go to college. Furthermore, immigrants are also entrepreneurs. They're 30% more likely to start their own businesses than native Americans.
Yeah. If you guys have done, each team does get 30 seconds for a rebuttal. Alright, so that's an incredibly skewed statistic because that doesn't discount, that discounts legal immigrants. People who came here and worked their hearts. And when it comes to did I fight for my American citizenship, You're goddamn right.
I would fight every day for my American citizenship. And if we went to war, our people would fight for it. The problem is when it comes down to illegal aliens, we don't create that establishment of citizenship. It's not the cultural icons that make Americans Americans.
part of what comes here by the established system, things that we can definitely attach to. And I'm sorry we can't attach to America as a culture. But America is more. America is something greater than just a random placard given out. Who's to say that someone born here, who has lived here their entire life, would not stand up for America?
Would not hold pride in America? And they, people who are born here recognize themselves as American. They have lived here their entire lives.
They hold those morals. They would fight for their freedom. They appreciate the opportunity that they have to live in this country and be able to not have an oppressive government come down on them. Thank you very much, David. We'll now move to the second question.
Many Democrats have argued that bringing undocumented immigrants legally into the workforce would help our economy by increasing consumption and tax revenue. Republicans have claimed, on the other hand, that by granting a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, we are encouraging legal action and citing increased competition for blue-collar workers. ...leading to an overall negative economic impact towards Americans.
My question is, in which ways would your specific plans assist the American economy, and why would it be more beneficial overall than the plans of your society? We'll begin this time with the Democrats. It has been noted that immigrants, regardless of their status, fill the gap between the low-skilled jobs and the shrinking pool of newborns who are willing to take such jobs. There was a specific case where...
Where jobs were opened up and no immigrants were there to fill them, as they were not allowed to hire any undocumented immigrants, and no American citizens came to replace those jobs. And in turn, they found to... get 2,000 workers from prisons to come and assist them. The case Nicole is talking about is the 2011 immigration law that was passed in Georgia. This is a common case study that scholars from across the aisle refer to when we're talking about the immigration debate.
A Republican governor enacted strict immigration restrictions and as a result of that, there was a huge shortage of labor in the labor market, particularly in the agricultural sector. And the state, in just a period of one year, saw a 140 million dollar decline in agricultural business. There was a huge labor shortage.
And the court mentions that they brought in prisoners to do the work, and even the prisoners left. ...jobs is good economics to have... So, the reason why we don't support amnesty and, like, to go back on your first point, there's nothing that says you can't have a legal guest worker program.
That's a legal work visa that you're allowed to give out, and agricultural jobs will be built that way. And also keep in mind, in terms of the rest of the economy, amnesty hurts low-skilled workers the most. The illegal immigrants are already here, and people who are like... An influx of 12 million illegal immigrants, giving them amnesty, is going to completely destroy that job market.
Unemployment is going to skyrocket. And additionally, a big number that I'd like to mention, I said it before, I said it again... 2.3 trillion dollars.
That's how much it's going to cost to pass amnesty and to get everybody in, give them legal status and try to integrate them into the country. That's a big number. That's going to destroy our fiscal market, it's going to destroy mortgage rates, interest rates, and that's going to hit everybody. And that's not going to make the economy better at all.
And worst of all, more amnesty is just going to lead to more illegal immigration. We've seen this in 2013 and 2014, when during the times where there were talks about amnesty being passed in Congress, there were about 50,000 unaccompanied minors who were exploited by human traffickers to try to get them across into the US. So this is just kicking the can down the road.
And when you pass amnesty, you incentivize more illegal immigration and you never solve the problem you end up talking about this again and again and you just create even more people who are in the shadows and can't find work and just become a burden on the rest of society both economically and also in terms of crime Okay, we will now move into sort of our sort of mid-debate summary. So each team will have, once again, four minutes to sort of present their case thus far or make any additions to that case for the audience, followed by another round of cross-examination just as in the beginning. We're going to start with Republicans on this time.
Alright, so let's go over something first. Their entire case is about moral decision making. Allow me to ask you one thing. First of all, there are a lot of great legal immigrants who came to this country.
People who worked through the system. People who worked long and hard to achieve their goals. to achieve their legal status.
Rob is from Russia. He's the immigrant here. I'm from the Hawaiian Islands.
Yes, we weren't originally immigrants, but we understand what it's actually like to be a minority, unlike, ironically, our opponents. But what you're doing is devaluing that. You're saying any anyone to be allowed to stroll into this country and claim to be American.
You were saying that criminals, thieves, which by the way, you haven't rebutted any of the statistics on that, shouldn't be allowed to be the same as those hardworking immigrants who earned it. Then, let's talk about your plan to systemically impoverish 12 million people permanently. Since the 1960s, under President Johnson, in his book, War on Poverty, the American government spent over $22 trillion.
You know what happened? Nothing. The poverty rate has remained at 14.5%. There is no solvency behind what the government does. And what you're proposing is allowing all these people to enter the labor market, all of whom will be impoverished, and will be put upon the social welfare system, only, I don't know, probably to vote Democrat.
That is what the plan is. Allow me to take a quote from Ronald Reagan. In this present crisis, government is not the solution.
Government is the problem. And that will always be the case. I would love for you to name me one.
poverty program the government actually helped people with a poverty program that did not incentivize people to re-enter the labor market on the other hand the republicans have had a specific advocacy in how we plan to solve this with an integration mechanism individual development accounts which were implemented in 1997 in areas like michigan for instance have had solvency integrating people while encouraging them to keep jobs and we only need to do it for two years unlike the democrat plan which permanently impoverishes people and this been shown to statistically work. Individual development accounts have been shown that 35% of those participants own businesses, 84% own homes, and 80% go to college. It empirically works because it incentivizes people to join the market and it doesn't disillusion them to permanent poverty, which is what the Democrats at the end of the day are wanting to do.
They never really brought up any statistics which have how immigrants help the economy. Now there was one, they signed a 2007 study. There are several problems with this study though, that academics have skewed. For one, they have gratefully overlooked discussing how they came about these conclusions. So allow me to tell you, when people take these studies, they look at county areas, not cities, not individual communities.
When you look at county areas, you have skewed statistics. That's like comparing Huntington Beach and Santa Ana and observing, oh, Huntington Beach crime went down. I bet them.
than people in Santa and are committing less crime. That makes absolutely no sense. Those studies are created that way in order to induce people to come to false conclusions.
Our studies that we cite look at individual communities, not just random clusters that they happen to form with their statistics. It's a massive problem in academia. We need to talk about the methodology behind these studies.
Then look on top of the economic argument. Their only economic argument is, oh, it'll damage the labor sector. Robbery, blood, and power.
how we're solving it. One, guest visa programs. We can control what the economy needs there.
Second off, we already talked about integration process. That integration process brings people into the economy. Third off, we specifically brought up about how we're going to have enforcement mechanisms to allow people to access the labor market in an equitable manner, something that illegal immigration doesn't allow. It only spams immigrants, basically spams workers into the agricultural industry. And sure, that might help us in the short term, but we're stealing jobs.
American citizens. So I emphasize the Republican platform very easily. Jobs, jobs, and jobs.
Because at the end of the day, people aren't looking for this race discourse. They're looking for actual plans. Democrats, at this point, you will have a chance to present your summary and or give any arguments or responses to arguments that were proposed by the Republicans throughout the debate so far. So first, we'd just like to start by breaking down some myths that were made, particularly regarding undocumented immigrants and their composition in our labor force. Undocumented immigrants comprise a disproportionately large percentage of our labor force, unlike what we know.
This is relative to the overall population in the United States. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants are here working and employed in the United States. These same people that you say legalizing will cause a drain on your system, they're already working here, they're already doing these jobs. You cannot say that legalizing them will cause that because they're already working here.
By you claiming our amnesty program will somehow cause some hit flex and jobs into the economy, first of all, we're not saying that permanent amnesty forever, we're not advocating open borders. Anybody on both sides of the aisle understands that that is a ridiculous proposition. What we're arguing for is legalization of current undocumented migrants that are living in this country.
People that are overdoing their jobs. In 2010, we had 8.4 million undocumented employees in the United States. In that same time period, it represented 5.2% of the U.S. labor force, although there were only 3.7% of the U.S. population. So, again, undocumented immigrants disproportionately comprise the labor market in our country.
Unlike any other form of Africa, we've been made one. That discrepancy is not something that exists in a new form. taken from us already citizens, undocumented women do not qualify for welfare through TANF, Medicaid, and most other family benefits.
Most of these programs are for people with immigration and they have to have been in the program for about five years in order to receive them. So they currently are not taking any from us, even though they are already working in these jobless and we have them. So sisters and sisters, we support you right now. That you as foreign children of immigrants, undocumented immigrants, are more likely to go to college, they're less likely to live in poverty, and you're really likely to become a Muslim.
These people that you are saying is the legalization of what caused a drain on our system, they're already here, the productive members of our society, and we believe that it's our job as representatives of the politics of our country to acknowledge them. Also, they are currently paying taxes. They make up $10.6 billion worth of state and local taxes.
Providing them amnesty will only contribute more. This will make them be required to pay more taxes and contribute more into our economy. Sure, so you said they're contributing money to the economy, yet I clearly read you evidence that shows illegal immigrants by themselves take over a hundred billion dollars per year. You say they only contribute ten.
So let's do some math. What is a hundred minus ten? What's a hundred minus ten?
Right, so the net deficit would be nine billion, right? Right, it's basic math. If you're giving in 10 and you're taking out 100, then there's a 90 billion dollar deficit. Could we agree to that?
In order to agree to that, I would like to see the breakdown of the 10. And where that, where is, what is the-Wait, so you're claiming we're lying? I'll give you our source. It's the Congressional Budget Office.
Now, I know Republicans sometimes disagree with it, but I never heard down the press thought they're claiming fake news. That's a new thing. So, do you have any evidence to substantiate that illegal immigrants on balance are providing more of a big money than the- So let's talk about the legal immigrants in our economy and what they get from us. Non-citizen immigrant adults and children are about 20% less likely to be signed up for Medicaid than their poor native counterparts. They're also 37% less likely to apply for food stamps, according to a 2013 study by the Yale Institute.
And Kimo, I know that you have a whole day of session with the CEO of the American Labor Office, but it's important to keep in mind that this is a partisan office. The administration changes just like the makeup of the House of Representatives. That's your point. That came under President Obama.
As a Democrat, I will acknowledge, as anybody here, as any national, you guys have problems with your party, we can disagree with you. So, associating those numbers just because they're Obama, they're for Obama. Didn't you guys say earlier that illegal immigrants don't use medical stamps and they use such as now that they're less likely to use it? That means they still use it, right?
Thank you. They shouldn't use it at all. That is time for the cross-examination.
into another portion of some moderator questions. This time we're going to have College Democrats answer first. And both teams will have two minutes and 30 seconds again.
So let's take a step back from the domestic issue at hand. and address sort of some international affairs regarding immigration and amnesty. The United States is a massive player on the global stage, and our immigration policy affects that standing, especially with regards to the presence and consideration of refugees and other immigrants fleeing war-torn countries.
How will your plan help America's position globally, or how will your opponent's plan damage that reputation? The position that we've consistently been making and that I will make a commitment is that immigration is good for the American economy. Now when we allow people in this country a pathway to citizenship, especially those that are undocumented and already working here, that is good economic work for American businesses.
We as a nation have also prided ourselves in helping others around us, providing them safe places when they have been restricted of their human rights. It is part of the American moral to provide people their human rights and their natural human rights. And in accepting international immigrants as asylum seekers, we are standing by those rules.
Alright, so in terms of whether our position will help the U.S. globally, I think it will because our idea for how we want to do legal immigration is we simply want the best that the world has to offer and we want to make sure that they come in legally. And in order to do that... that we need to make sure that our immigration system is merit based.
So everybody applies, if somebody happens to have a distinct skill that they could offer to the country to help America and help themselves, yes, we want those people there. And I think that objectively, that is the policy that we would want to pursue for the well being of this country. The Democrats policy of just giving amnesty to whoever happens to be here, whether or not they pass a background check or whether or not they essentially cut the line to get there ahead of people who are much more qualified. Like it's kind of interesting, the left likes to use the word privilege a lot.
Why is it not also largely a privilege to say, to allow priority to people who cross into the country illegally just because they happen to be closer, whereas somebody who's probably facing an even worse situation in their own homes. They have no hope of getting to this country legally because all the spaces are taken up by the people who get amnesty. And frankly, I find it completely unfair. Like, for example, when I came here to this country, I created a little bit over... for five years for my family to get a visa.
And most immigrants who are in my position, they spend even more time, 10 years. So why is it fair for them to wait even more time so that we could grant amnesty to people who can't even pass a background check and are probably criminals? fundamentally unfair. And as for helping others and human rights, we have sympathy for people who want to come in, but we have to make sure that if people come in are secure, that we can verify who they are.
And given some of the terrorist attacks committed by refugees elsewhere, I think that the country should put its own safety first and make sure that people are vetted, which at this stage we simply cannot do. Thank you. So at this point we'll now have 30 seconds of responses from each group, beginning with the Democrats. The amnesty game is an assumption.
Also, I would like to say that you can't just assume that people who are already here are not also in horrible circumstances in their home countries. Providing amnesty... to the people who are already in the United States is not only people who are just coming in here.
There's plenty of people who are also here searching for a safe home away from their country of origin. And when we talk about privilege, can you mention So I'd like to talk about undocumented immigration as a sort of. Our immigration policy disproportionately favors with the strict requirements to enter this country. It disproportionately favors the wealthy, privileged residents of other countries.
And it does not help the underprivileged. Second question. This one will start with the College Republicans.
Oh, yes. Sorry. Alright, so I'm going to make this clear. Our policy is America first. They claim we can't assume people are committing crime.
I gave you a study that showed you specifically in sanctuary cities, rates double. It's literally the term of crime. I just gave you the study in our first speech, and I know you like to cherry pick counties, but I look at studies that look at cities.
Now, yes, your own authors tend to skew the studies because they don't know how to write properly. But what I'm saying is look at the data. Now secondly, when we come down to economic hedge fund, look at the United States and Mexico. They don't respect our country. I think that is time.
Perfect. So, as I said before, now I'm going to ask one more question. And that's going to start with the College Republicans.
We're going to follow the same format after which we will open it to the audience. So finally, I would like to ask a question pertaining to UCI. President Trump recently claimed that he would defund cities and institutions which claimed to be either sanctuary cities or sanctuary campuses. The ASUCI Senate has also been sort of toying around with the idea of making the school a sanctuary campus in order to protect the students. our undocumented students.
However, this could threaten our federal funding and we are unsure at this time what that ramification would be. What is your stance on this issue and how will your plan secure the best education and funding for the largest number of students and faculty possible? Alright, so I'm going to put it simply, the Senate is idiotic.
Because why would you pass a policy that would defund UCI? It literally does nothing. All it does is, oh, let's just talk against Donald Trump.
That's all that policy implies. The policy doesn't do anything. anything. All it is is a middle finger to the republic of the south. That's all it does.
And it threatens every student. Now what do I think we should do with undocumented students in UCI? Depart them. Simple. That's what the law says.
So that's what we're going to do. That is simply putting America first. Now, yes, they can come back, but they must come back easily. So when it comes down to it at the end of the day, we're going to pass policy that follows something called the federal government comes first, not some random student government. The federal government has a right to make laws, and the student government does not have a right to impede upon these laws.
They can't suddenly decide, oh, we're going to go violate the Constitution. They can't do that. That's not within their jurisdiction.
This is insanity. You're allowing the student government to take over federal law. I just want to point out a crazy thing.
And also, I'd like to add that The ASCCI Senate wouldn't even have any jurisdiction in this. And all it will be doing is putting both of us, it's going to put a fiscal target on our backs because we're going to lose a lot of funding. And this is funding that's supposed to benefit all of DCI. And it's kind of interesting that ASCCI is controlling this too. ASCCI is more or less going bankrupt.
And they've had to increase their fees lately, but I bet they're still going to have some problems, especially if Trump follows through with this, which he probably will. And also, I just paint this as extreme virtue signaling that they have no power to actually enforce, and they try to think that a slap on the face is worth a shot in the head, more or less. Thank you.
The call to note goes out in two minutes. So when we're talking about sanctuary cities, excuse me, campuses, cities, or even states in California declaring sanctuary status, there is no legal grounds for the federal government to remove funding from a place... When they declare sanctuary status, when the government, when the federal government in particular, gives funding to a locality, whether it be a municipal locality or a state, unless they impose conditions on that funding from the get-go, it is illegal and unconstitutional for them to withhold.
that funding. So if the current administration as they have threatened were to go through with defunding programs for sanctuary schools or withholding federal funds from those cities, that would be unconstitutional. And that's because it violates the principle of federalism and local control that exists in our constitution. Local governments are given certain authorities and rights that the federal government cannot keep on. And one of those rights is what I just mentioned.
You cannot impose conditions on someone after the fact, particularly when it comes to law enforcement, infrastructure, and other priorities. Alright, so there's something called the Federal Supremacy Clause, which any basic first-year law student would know. What it means is you can't pass a policy that violates government law. This isn't after the fact.
They've been illegal for a while. Why do you think President Obama went and deported 3 million of them? illegal. It's been illegal and it continues to be illegal.
And the soon government has no right to impede upon the federal government's jurisdiction to enforce immigration laws. That's common sense. Now let's also look at the equivalent of what you're saying and the applied to legal aspect. What you're saying is we can pass whatever we want and it doesn't matter because the federal government has no jurisdiction over it.
That's ridiculous. The student government does have the right to stand up for its students. That is part of its job. Regardless of the impact it will make in the future, it is their job to stand up for the people within the university.
As we have such a large population of undocumented students here who have worked just as hard as the rest of us have, if not even harder, it is important that we have a student government that stands up for their students. who represents us and will stand up for us regardless of voice. Thank you very much.
That's the end of time for this question. We're now going to move into audience questions. take approximately 20 minutes on this, although if there are a lot of questions, we'll try to answer as many as possible.
But if the interest of time comes first, then we will have to cut some of them short. Just to clarify how this is going to work, so as you're all doing, you're already raising your hands. This is how it's going to work.
You're going to raise your hands. We're going to bring the mic to you. You're going to ask your question, and then we are going to come back.
You're not going to have the opportunity for follow-up, unfortunately. If you wish to continue, you'll have to ask a second question. We also ask that you keep it topical.
Any questions that we see as not constructive to the topic of this debate or just to be sort of something unrelated, we will just reject that question. Yes, so no, also no personal attacks to the debaters. This is kept on topic.
Thank you. Hi, I have a question for both of you. It's kind of the same topic, but I think we have different answers. For the college Republicans, how would Trump get Mexico to pay for the wall? For the college Democrats, why would the wall never be paid for?
So we'll start on this. We're going to amend Rule 130.121 to redefine applicable financial institutions to include transfer companies like Western Union and redefine accounts and require transfers. At that point, illegal aliens will not be allowed to provide money outside of the United States unless they prove documentation that they are indeed illegal aliens. That would effectively cut off $24 billion of aid going back to Mexico, which they'd have to make up for on their social security net.
What that means is, effectively, Mexico can either pay $10 billion to go to wall, or $24 billion to a bunch of poor Mexican citizens that suddenly have their only source of revenue cut off. Call the Democrats. So we're opposed to the wall for a simple reason that I'll elaborate on, but the main reason is it's fucking stupid.
When we talk about immigration into the United States, specifically undocumented immigration, the majority of undocumented immigrants came here legally. They're not running over the border as a stereotype. The character of them is they come here legally, they overstay their visas, they fly in, they overstay tourist visas, whether they're working or they're staying home. So the wall does not solve that problem.
Furthermore, I do not understand why there is this obsessive idea that Mexico should pay for that wall. The majority of legal immigrants, contrary to popular myth, are not immigrants. I'd like to bring back the point that you made about the ASUCI being a slap to the face. I feel so the wall is... Unfortunately, that is time.
Next question, let's take someone from this side. For the college Democrats, I have both for amnesty and everything. The college Democrats, amnesty, do you believe advocating for citizenship or legal status and how do you define between those two?
And for the college Republicans, you are against amnesty. Do you believe in a situation to integrate them through citizenship or legal status, through military service or other social work? Thank you. Can you repeat the question? Amnesty, are you advocating for citizenship or legal status?
And how do you define between those two? So when we're talking about amnesty, it's both. To become a citizen of the United States, first you have to have legal status.
So without first giving people legal status, it is impossible for them to then become citizens. So when we talk about amnesty, it's both. First we want to give legal status to those documented migrants who are here, and then we want them to have a pathway to citizenship. So we find giving citizenship to people who do it illegally and insult to people who have to work hard to come here legally.
And in terms of how we would try to integrate the people who do it illegally but want to do it the right way, the best way to do it would be to go back to their home countries and then reapply again. And also you mentioned military service. I would be open to something along the lines where somebody can serve their country for a given number of years and come back. and be eligible for legal status and maybe, like I wouldn't say citizenship, but at the very least legal status so that their kids can become citizens.
I would consider military service to be acceptable enough that we pay for breaking the law. Thank you very much. Next question will be you, Edward. Yeah, shortly after the election there was this huge group of people, they were arguing with me about immigration and race and everything.
Speaking about race, This is what really turns me off, is that why in the world is diversity and mass immigration only happening in white countries? And we always talk about illegal immigration being a racial issue. What about the illegal immigration that's going on in Europe? They always say this is natives'land.
What about Europe? Why does Europe have to suffer from Muslim invasion? Shouldn't the white people have their sanctuary in Europe? Come on. Let's figure out a compromise.
Who's the question you directed at? Either of them. I mean, you know, this campus has a group for certain type of races, Hispanics, Asians, but there's no white group on campus. I'm not even European.
dissent. If you want real equality, have a white group on campus or have no racial-based group. Okay, so I guess whoever would like to begin. No, no, no, answer, answer, please. Answer, come on.
What about European immigration? Talk about European immigration. Yeah, if you believe there are white supremacists who want illegal immigrants out, shouldn't the white supremacists at least have a sanctuary in Europe?
Off topic! No, it's not. It's true.
Because, you know, other... races preserve their own heritage. Just for clarification, the topic of this debate is on United States immigration.
Okay, then let's talk about E-Verify then. E-Verify. Should we implement E-Verify among welfare programs and employment?
How about that? E-Verify. Okay, whoever would like to respond first? Yeah..
Sure, okay. So E-Verify, I think it's a good system on its premise, but the problem with it is computerized programs always have a tendency to not work well. And the problem is when you're dealing with 12 million people that are here illegally, that can be a big problem. The status quo works about it quite fine, but I would say that there needs to be immigration policy that prevents illegals from getting welfare. Because yes, they are able to get it.
to get fake social security numbers. Like Kevin DeLeon. No, okay.
Yes? Actually, yes. That's a good point.
It's not a discussion. Okay, yes, that's actually true. But when it comes down to it at the end of the day, we wanna look at policy that actually helps people in the long run, which we're about helping American citizens, not just about hurting illegals.
Illegals are hurting Americans, and thus they need to be deported. It's so hard to verify because earlier we cited the harsh immigration law passed in Georgia and that caused a huge shortage in the labor market and ultimately was severely detrimental to the agricultural economy. E-Verify would do a similar thing. Because unfortunately, undocumented immigrants, because they're undocumented, while they pay other taxes in our system, like income tax, and sales tax, sorry, sales tax, not income tax, E-Verify would be a way to weed out undocumented immigrants and have their legal status realized, and we're against that. Our next question is going to be over here.
This question is for the College Republicans owning. Are you guys familiar with the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986? Give a specific arc, like, yes, I'm aware.
Yeah, it's just in regards to the ethnicity requirements. Like if you guys are familiar with it, because it seems that you guys are suggesting that the United States just like has undocumented people like ethnicity. But I feel that if you guys are familiar with this act, you would know that it's not like that.
I'm familiar with it in that It wasn't exactly like, basically there were about 20 million people or something that received amnesty that way. And the problem is, in exchange for doing that, there was supposed to be a concession where we would get much more force. so that this would not become a problem anymore. However, since we gave amnesty and we incentivized more people to try to come in illegally, this problem continued, so that way we're discussing this 30 years later now. So this is why we believe there is...
strongly that amnesty is the wrong way to go because it's not going to solve the problem of how do we make sure we don't have people come in illegally because i think i think illegal immigration is bad in and of itself for everybody involved both for the country keeping them in and for the immigrants themselves because what kind of livelihood could they expect if they if they have to live in the shadows their whole lives like we think it's best for them to try to come here legally like they have to go through the process it's a little bit longer but Thank you. Last time, buddy. Hello.
How are you doing? So I want to kind of access the economic factors of amnesty. There has been studies done with economic models, particularly CG, which is a computable general equilibrium model.
And that might be the case for the This is a model specifically focused on how policies will change the current situation of the country. So it's a policy is a lot of feasibility, a model is a lot of feasibility of policies. Based on this model, focus on a specific county but it studies they find that in LA County it would amnesty or comprehensive immigration reform as they call it would bring 1.5 trillion additional GDP over the next 10 years 10 years to the US and increase it by 84.84%.
It would have significant increase in California in general but 1.9 billion increase just for LA. And then also they also conducted a study on just having Legal status but not necessarily providing amnesty and they found that it will only increase it by 0.44% and only bring $792 billion GDP over the next 10 years. And finally they found for mass importation of...
decreased the economy GDP by 110 trillion over the course of 10 years. So I want to understand what the college Republicans or you guys think about how this model assesses the situation or if it's a valid model. Perfect.
Right, so to answer this question, it's largely methodological. So, for one, have you ever gone to East LA? Does it look like it's a great place? And the answer is no, because there's no way to keep these people out of poverty.
They go back into poverty, and they continue to cycle welfare. Now, the problem is, if you cross by earlier when I talked... about they begin to then take from those welfare systems and then on debt it begins to take away so yes you will see a slight increase in the population's ability to spend in the economy but you'll see a larger net deficit because we have to pump money back into welfare so on back Remember when I exercise my college Democrat friends over here about the difference between 10 and 90, or 90 being the net deficit. That's a big difference. So at the end of the day, it's net benefit analysis.
And then on top of that, remember when you're looking at counties, those economic models are skewed because they take previous correlations and attempt to define them in a way that is beneficial or is going to increase the same. We don't actually know that. It's purely a sum. And on counties, I have a serious problem because I need to be comparing Santa Ana on Asia. And I'm not going to be comparing it to the United States.
I'm going to be comparing it to the United States. And I'm going to be comparing it to the United States. And I'm going to be comparing it to the United States.
And I'm going to be comparing it to the United States. And I'm going to be comparing it to the United States. And I'm going to be comparing it to the United States. And I'm going to be comparing it to the United States.
And I'm going to be comparing it to the United States. And I'm going to be comparing it to the United States. And I'm going to be comparing it to the United States. And I'm going to be comparing it to the United States.
and that's not an actual empirical analysis. I just want to note that this model has been known to be impartial. Okay.
It's wrong, but okay. Was your question also directed at the college Democrats or just the Republicans? I would just like to make a comment on what you had mentioned about the massive rotation of the U.S. in America also in the 12-week period. In establishing mass deportation, we would also have to spend a significant amount of money on private prisons that hold people for years and years and years.
We would be providing for them for years before they are actually deported. So, would you rather them be working, contributing to our society, and filling jobs to help citizens, or would you rather them be sitting in a prison consuming drugs? Thank you.
Thank you. Next question, there was one up here. This is directed to the young Democrats. So if I'm an illegal immigrant, so rephrase, if an illegal immigrant is an undocumented citizen and I sold drugs, would I be called an unlicensed pharmacist?
I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'll just repeat it for you.
So if an illegal immigrant is an undocumented citizen, if I sold drugs, would I be called an unlicensed pharmacist? Is there a broader point to this question? I just want you to answer yes or no. This is implied mockery.
It's not really a topic question. Can't answer. I will decide if that's not enough.
It will matter if you want to respond or you may. We're not prepared to give an indicated answer to that question. You want me to give an answer?
No. Can I redirect it to them? If there's something. Answer.
Go for it. Okay, sure. Yeah, you would be, because by their logic in this, you clearly showed there's a lot the fallacy here, one crime is to another. To put it most simply, if you commit a crime, then you commit a crime. It's not that you're an unauthorized person or some vague terminology that's wrong.
So by their same, I guess we could say... a murderer, a serial killer, was an unauthorized butcher. There's no claim to congruency here. And really what the college Republicans are speaking, yes, we're mocking them because what they're saying doesn't make any sense.
But what it comes down to is crimes are crimes and they should be treated as such. And there's an empirical reason they're crimes. They came from the system.
They've been crime. We even brought up facts that they disproportionately rape in sanctuary cities. These are whole facts.
And the reason we bring this up is there are problems in the of people like unlicensed pharmacists that they negatively affect the population. So what we're speaking for is simple, practical policy. Thank you. You wanted to ask a question?
My name is Arthur Schopper. I'm a member of the Remembrance Project. We're a 50-state organization that provides support, financial and moral, for family members who've lost loved ones to illegal aliens. So my question to the Democrats, what would you like to tell the parents of Katherine Steinling?
Rubin Morphy, and the average of 25 Americans a day who are killed by illegal aliens. And for the Republicans, though, don't, don't, we're not going to let you off easy. So there was an amnesty bill in 2013. Thirteen Republicans voted for it.
Why? Start with the Democrats, please. So when we're talking about children of Native-born citizens murdered by...
I'd like to remind you and everybody in the audience that undocumented immigrants are disproportionately the target of hate crimes and murder by native-born Americans. The murder rate for undocumented immigrants and even legal immigrants is higher than the reverse. I would also like to note that you cannot generalize an entire population based on circumstances that you are aware of or close to. I do understand that those may be serious circumstances and I would like condolences to those families, but that does not, you cannot generalize an entire population based off of that. You didn't answer the question, what would you like to tell the parents?
I'm sorry, you need to raise your hand again for another... Republicans had the question. I got smacked yesterday by an illegal. I asked a question to the Republicans. Then cut it, Abe.
Please avoid speaking without the microphone. So, to answer your question, I guess the reason why they did that is they thought it was like some political... Game to try to get more support from the Hispanic Americans maybe. And maybe they think that some of the economic arguments for the bill might be worth it.
Personally, myself, I disagree with that decision. would not have voted for it had it been the Senate, obviously, because of the reason that we stated before, and also because it's an economic net loss. And worst of all, it re-incentivizes even more illegal immigration. Right.
So a final thing on this, too. when looking at legislation in Congress, it's incredibly complicated. Because statutory requirements at times are vague, they're very long, things like that. Now I disagree, there should not be amnesty and those Republicans are in the wrong.
But when it comes down to it, we need to remember when we're talking about legislation in general, we look at the specific problems in it, because legislation's very long, it's lengthy, so try not to generalize legislation because it's so complicated. Thank you very much. I can't run for US Senate, Rob. Sorry, if you wanna ask another question, you can answer it. Raise your hand again.
So given that the Republican Party, specifically California, is facing a shrinking voter base among immigrant communities, specifically among Latinos, we also have a to show that millennials are among the least involved in the Republican Party in voter registration as Latinos. So considering the traditionalist social values predominantly held by Immigrants and community members of Latin American descent, do you think that the Republican Party can afford to take such a hard line stance on immigration given that Latinos are becoming an ethnic majority in the state of California? So to answer your question, we need to reach out to them and we need to increase our voter engagement with the Hispanic community as well as other communities in the state.
But supporting Amnesty and thinking that this is somehow going to lead us to the promise of a better future for Latinos. Number one, it's a complete fallacy because there's institutional of loyalty to the local democratic parties in these areas already. And number two, more importantly, it's kind of insulting. To say that you can just dangle a piece of candy or a fantasy in this case towards group voters and assume that they're just gonna automatically support you because of that, or to assume that these people are single-issue voters, that's definitely not the case. Some of the most conservative people that I know happen to be able to.
They happen to live in sanctuary cities and they see the damage that's being done to them with these policies. They see the crimes that are happening that the police are not enforcing because somebody in the site remember decided it was politically incorrect to do. We need to tackle those issues and we need to actually be tougher on crime in order to protect the people who are here legally. Thank you.
I think that's the end of the time. Were the Democrats, was the question also for you? Okay. I actually would like to add something.
If you used to vote Democrat. Because they're signing with the party that represents their interests and acknowledges that they are contributing members of our economy that deserve to be acknowledged as such. Okay, thank you. This question is more aimed towards the College of Troubled Kids, but I do welcome the College Democrats to respond as well.
So today in this debate, you've mentioned a lot about these background checks, and implying, correct me if I'm wrong, implying that these background checks would happen before they entered the country meaning no criminal action this country get but with these background checks how does that account for corrupted governments such as where my family's from in North Korea where my grandfather who's a refugee is labeled as a political Criminal. So how do the background checks that you've been referencing this debate affect the status of someone able to come to this country? This was directed at the... Oh, directed at the college Republicans, but I do want to hear from the college Republicans. Thank you.
Alright, so one of the primary problems when it comes down to this is that the system itself has difficulty tracking where everyone goes, which is... That's really why I'm against amnesty. But when it comes down to looking at places like North Korea and political refugees coming from that area, the question is not so much can we decipher if they're criminals or not, the question is more of what is the history of that specific person. Because in a lot of cases, people give trade. They give answers to what they want to do.
For instance, a lot of terrorists that come from the Middle East, they say things on social media that indicate whether they're going to commit terrorist actions. That's simply factual. We see that in Europe in a lot of cases.
When it also comes down to it, I'm not saying the system is perfect. But we do have pretty good background, Shepard. And I would say the empirical evidence shows that with extreme vetting, we can mitigate the possibility that these people will be committing crime.
or in the worst case, like the Middle East, terrorism. Being labeled as a political criminal and not being able to be accepted into the country based on background checks when in such case I would be bringing it to attention saying that he has not been a contributor to such political actions. So it's kind of making a point to the background checks that are currently being done not actually being what you say they are.
Thank you. Let's take another question. Let's go somewhere. Let's go here.
Hello, so I have a question for college Democrats and Republicans. So to college Democrats, you said that we should give undocumented immigrants legal status and then eventually citizenship. So what about documented immigrants or like legal visa holders who already applied for citizenship or a green card?
Should we automatically give them citizenship? Also. to college publicans. You said that illegal immigrants should be deported, right? But what about people who came here legally and then oversee visa and then they married, they got, they applied or they married to a citizenship holder and like be a citizen and they became a citizen or like they're trying to become a citizen, should we deport them or like...
What should be the line? Who would you like to answer first? We'll just go with Democrats first Our personal view is that those who are already going, who already have full legal status and are working towards citizenship, the aim is to get those who are undocumented to the same legal status. have them all go through the same process of citizenship.
It should be a collaborative thing, so it's not only them just skipping ahead of them and immediately getting citizenship. They should both be brought to the same legal status and then both get citizenship. So to preface this question, I am never in favor of damaging the families at all. Because families are what make up America. Families are what create strong democratic institutions.
And families, most importantly, are what create strong children. That being said, unfortunately, I cannot delineate between people who break the law. In fact, immigration officers, in fact, likely catch that scenario before it happened. But if it did, courts and our justice system has a way to solve such discrepancies. So it depends on the contextual analysis that is happening at the time.
I'd say that would be a best-solved fighting justice, because it depends on the context in which they came to this country. Especially if they're crossing the border illegally, unfortunately, you have to go back. So this question is primarily to college Republicans, but college Democrats can't add their input. So my understanding of your platform is that you wish for there to be a wall built to keep out this kind of huge flow.
of illegal immigrants that are coming in and crossing the border. So what do you say then to the Pew Research statistics that say that the unauthorized immigrants crossing the border is at a net zero and has been so for the past two years? So this wall that we're trying to build that could cost us upwards of $15 billion seems to be obsolete and kind of just a political rhetorical tool to marshal support for the current regime and kind of otherwise a certain group.
So please, I would like to hear your input, and if college young guys would like to comment, that would be great. Alright, first off, I don't know what year you got that data from because at some point while the economy was in the tank, like around 2009-2010, that inflow did go down, but it has risen up again recently, especially after 2013-2014 when they announced the full supremacy. So to answer that question on the data specifically, I want to ask you, how do you collect data on people you don't know coming over? That doesn't make any sense. So when it comes to people crossing the border, we're not entirely sure.
But we can tell the problem. You know why? Because the voters...
speak for us. And when the voters say there's a problem, there's a problem. To also critique the methodology behind that, there's a number of statistics showing that sanctuary cities are growing, that institutions from illegal immigrants taking welfare are growing.
The problem is getting worse. So I ask this question to everyone. If it is true that illegal immigrants are leaving this country nationally, then why do we keep paying more and more and more for them? both of us would like to add something briefly to that.
Just to bounce off what Kimo said, actually the voters do not approve that approach. Overwhelmingly, the current administration did not win the popular vote. Neither did the current majority in the House of Representatives. So that argument is fallacious. We also, I'd also like to add a couple things.
And go back to what I was saying earlier about the ASUCI, you making the remark that it was a slap in the face. And in addition to the idea of the wall being more, as you said, slap to the face, as we have at a net zero, people coming in here. Thank you.
You were waiting? Yes, thank you. Well, just to give some background, you know, yesterday I was at some sort of city council meeting, and there were a bunch of people, like, with these signs saying white people should go back to Europe.
Apparently something about us stealing some sort of land. land or something. And I'm wondering, why should we want to import people into this country who think that we stole land from them, that they think we wronged them? Why should we want people who hold those views?
to be in this country because many of the people who are, quote, undocumented immigrants, and I guess this is for the Democrats, but the Republicans can comment too, why would we want people, which many of these illegal immigrants are, who view that America stole their land and view also that America owes them something because we supposedly stole land from them in a conflict that happened about 150 years ago? So that's my question. I think it's important to pay attention to the history of the United States and the Europeans coming to the country and taking land away from Native Indians already here.
I don't believe that it's necessarily immigrants coming from other countries claiming that we are stealing land from them. As we have been here for hundreds of years, we have worked with the Native Americans, though there have been some issues. I think that's the problem. It is not direct, these people are not coming here and claiming that we are taking their money.
I don't think that that's a valid argument to say that we shouldn't be allowing them to do things. That's not necessarily what they're claiming. And I'd also just like to touch on the connotation of your question, that we would discriminate against people based on their political views to enter this country.
It's unconstitutional and something that we're strongly against. Republicans, do you have a comment as well? Alright, so I wouldn't exactly call this a broad assessment of the entire group, but we fully and completely condemn these protest organs. who seek to do nothing but divide and try to create a race war between Latinos and whites. But I would also like to say that this kind of goes back to the problem of of what happens when you incentivize illegal immigration and you don't stop the problem at its root.
You have people who don't assimilate, mainly because they can't, because you live in the shadows your whole life, because that's all you can ever really do as an illegal immigrant when you try to skip the line to getting here legally. So I think this is just yet another example of why we need to curb illegal immigration and try to encourage them to apply legally as well. Because if that's the case.
then you're just breeding groups that can't assimilate and that have resentment towards the groups they came to. Thank you very much. Let's see. We're gonna take people who are asking their first question before we do questions. Oh yes, yeah, if you have a repeat question, we'll be giving preference to first time questions.
So let's start over here. Alright, so this is a question mostly for you guys, the Democrats. I mean, if you talk also, whatever.
Alright, so let's say that, okay, so you're in the Amnesty program, right? You're saying that, you know, the people who are already here that are undocumented, you'll... you know, given citizenship and like legal status eventually, right? Yeah, okay.
They're undocumented, right? Yeah, okay. So say that Hillary Clinton won the presidency, and we're going to roll out this, you know, new act.
program so I'm a legal immigrant and how would you explain to me that oh yeah by the way you spent six years a few thousand dollars and literally you could have just came here sat down and you've done the same thing could you just explain that to me When you're a legal immigrant and you have a pathway to citizenship in front of you, we're advocating that that same pathway to citizenship be given to people who are undocumented. Also, in specific regard to your situation that you have proposed, I think that it's more, I think that in light of letting those who know, who have spent the money and the time in order to get here... their citizenship to know that these are also their brothers and sisters, people within the United States. We are all here together, and it should be important that we support one another.
Granted, I may have gone through more initially in the beginning, but this shows that we are making movements forward so that other people shouldn't have to go through that same process if they understand how difficult it is. So I find it hilarious that other people standing on the other side of the stage, they can't emphasize with you. I wonder why.
Because they don't care about how people can argue. They don't care about how people's system works. They don't care that it is deeply disrespectful to charge you thousands of dollars and then just to hand it off to somebody.
The reason being is, most of the Democrats, and really this is a very cynical perspective but it's true, they just want more voters. Because if I give you citizenship, are you going to vote for me? Yeah, you are.
Exactly. That is the reason they're handing off the citizenship. They don't care about you.
They care about political expediency. And I come up here, and I'm not saying exactly popular views, but I'm saying how it really is. Because that is the strategy of the Democratic Party.
The Republicans stand for virtue. The Democrats stand for expediency. Maybe it's because we believe that the current charging of thousands and thousands of dollars is unjust. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Next question over here. Thanks, sir. All right, so this is also a question, but I just want to make a comment. Earlier, College Republicans stated that they're in support of strong families. So I want to say, what do you say to the families that are participating in DACA and DAPA?
DAPA having the judicial issue it's having right now, who cannot reach legal status, but are willing to pay income taxes and aiding the economy? Well, it is admirable that these students do want to go into universities and everything. It just stands that they broke the law and they were here illegally. Do you know what DACA and DAPA is? Yes, I do.
Yeah. Okay. So DACA doesn't state that you came here legally.
DACA gives you an extension for a period of time. It's an executive order. And I'd be in favor of Trump repealing it. Why?
Do you remember what I said in the beginning? about the Congressional budget office. These people cost money to the system. They're here, they're not paying their fair share. Now, yes, they contribute some.
They contribute 10 billion, as the Democrats said. But they take 100 billion, do the math. They. They are stealing from our economy. They're taking from our people.
They are the ones that are to blame for this. And yes, they're committing illegal action. That's a fact.
And I'm sorry for their families. I really am. I never want families to split up. And I pray to God every day that we can have a system that actually cares for people.
Because really, that's not what we've done. Does the Democrats have a response to the comments? I didn't make noise. I just want to point out some inaccuracy and maybe some discrepancy.
We appreciate the point of the Republican that you do not want to split families. We agree with that. And that's exactly why we believe that we can acknowledge that while some of this country are unjust, especially our immigration laws, we do not believe that anybody should be supported by the government.
Thank you very much. Okay, we got a question over here. My question is towards the college Republicans.
At one point during the debate, you mentioned that you would restrict giving legal status to immigrants who are the best of the best. But as the college Democrats mentioned, Undocumented immigrants actually make up a huge portion of the workforce with regards to jobs that Korean American citizens don't actually want to take. Like, for example, agriculture. jobs, low-skill manual labor.
So my question is, would restricting legal status to the best of the best actually result in those immigrants taking American citizens'jobs, the jobs that actual American citizens want because they're better? Okay, first I would like to say that while there are some economic contributions from those who are here illegally, there are much greater economic costs. As we discussed earlier, they've contributed $10 million towards the economy and they've cost $100 million.
billion. Do the math. One is ten times greater than the other.
And as for agriculture, we're not saying that we're against guest worker programs. I think those should continue with great checks on the visa program, of course, to make sure people don't overstay. But it's kind of interesting.
a lot of the supporters of democratic policies here have more or less reduced illegal immigrants to saying, well, they just do the work that nobody else wants. Isn't that very patronizing and disrespectful to their potential? It's almost like you want a permanent underclass. And frankly, that is completely counter to the values of the American dream. And as an immigrant myself, I'm particularly ashamed to hear that.
For the sake of time, if you don't have a comment to make, then we don't have time to say it. Just because we're trying to get as many questions as possible. But if you have something you really want to say, then you can say it. Okay. So we're only going to have time for two more questions, most likely, due to the lack of time.
So... Okay. Hi. Hi.
Jesse. Okay, yeah. This one's mostly focused on the college Republicans.
So, you say you're about law and order to... enforce current laws, but it also seems like you're not against changing laws because you seem to be fine with revoking birthright citizenship. So don't really say that you're for enforcing current laws if you are for changing some laws in accordance to this.
Okay, but it also seems like to deal with this problem of having a bunch of people here not with it, I guess, legal yet, you could also just change other laws about their legal status. Early on in the 2017 election, I looked at Paul Ryan's certain policy for giving legal status and the pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants so long as they met certain conditions such as registering themselves into a system and having a one-strike policy and not allowing them that benefits that are reserved for citizens It wouldn't allow them to become citizens before other people immigrated legally, so it's not like they're cutting in line. Okay.
Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. But it seems like after Trump got elected, Republican policy shifted to something more nuanced and more nationalized. It seems like...
Is there a question? Yeah. So, it discourages illegal immigration by making the deportation process more efficient and illegal immigration more difficult. But it doesn't change the problem that the reason people illegally... to immigrate is exactly because the legal immigration process is too inefficient.
How do you explain this shift to seemingly simpler, un-nuanced policies, and do you think it addresses the root problem of why people immigrate illegally in the first place? So to answer that question first and most, I said the law should be interpreted as the Supreme Court said. So yes, they get birthright citizenship right now.
They do. Because that's what the court said. Do I want to change it?
Absolutely. There's nothing wrong with changing the law. What makes an institution legitimate is when they have...
have a process of rapport. So yes, they get their birthright citizenship. No, I don't want them to have it.
Now, to go into your second question, it would have nuanced policies. I don't disagree. I would say the policy is now much better.
And being a Paul Ryan, I don't agree with everything Paul Ryan does. Clearly, he's not exactly my side of the Republican Party. Now, he's a fine guy, but there's not everything in his policy that should be advocated or implemented.
So that would be my response to the Paul Ryan question. Did the Democrats have a response? Or was the response just for the Republicans? Okay, so we have one more question.
Sorry, we wanted to get to all the questions. We apologize that we weren't able to get to everybody. Hi, so I'm actually doing research on college Democrats and college Republicans.
Every UC school. It's been cool going to all the UC schools. But my question is, so with this debate on immigration and I guess in some part a vision of America, in what vision of America do you think Democrats or Republicans agree upon? In what vision do you think they disagree upon?
And do you think they're ultimately compatible or conflicted? Is this directed specifically by immigration? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
Specifically in regards to immigration, please. So I think despite our differences over what we'd like to see U.S. immigration policy look like, I think we do have one huge area of common ground, and that's specifically that we'd like to see a better United States, a better job market, a better economy, one that benefits all people. And I think that's a huge area where we agree with them on. We want the economy of our country to be better. And I guess to add to Kash's point, I would say that on immigration, both parties are doing what our idea of the initial American agreement, the idea that anyone can come.
and succeed. We just happen to have different ways of doing it. And sometimes, for example, with us, we care more about the process. We want to make sure that everybody comes here legally so they can actually be able to achieve those goals. Whereas I guess with the Democrats, it's more about trying to keep families together.
It's more like an emotional or moral argument, I would suppose. But at least with us, we want to make sure that we continue America's legacy of being a country where anyone can succeed. We just want to make sure that it's a fair process for everyone and nobody cheats the system. Thank you very much to both teams. And thank you for all the audience members who gave questions.
We apologize if we couldn't get to all the questions. We're now going to have closing comments. Sorry. Oh, yes. We're now going to have closing statements from each team.
Oh, sorry. Just because of the sake of time, I'm going to ask you to keep it to one minute. Awesome. We can begin.
Since the start of the debate, we began with the Democrats. We will begin the closing statements with the Republicans. And then we'll move to the next. So what this boils down to is pragmatism versus virtue signal. The reason it comes down to that is because the Republicans proposed economic policy.
We proposed articles where we specify the methodology. We proposed a three-pillar plan that would counter every... every part of the immigration plan, whereas the Democrats believe everyone can get together, hold hands, and have a kumbaya circle. And when it comes down to it, there is no evidence that will ever occur.
There's still going to be criminals. There's still going to be crime. The economy's still going to be damaged.
They have not. not answered any of the questions we've given about the methodology of their articles. They haven't answered a single question about the economy except for the agro industry. Even though when I showed them the math, 100 minus 10 still is 90. So there's still a $90 billion deficit there.
The question was never answered. They didn't even answer the fact of the cost of amnesty, $2.3 trillion. So what it comes down to today, when you pick between parties, you're picking between pragmatic policy. We would like to restate that we do not support laws based on racist political rhetoric, demonizing human beings, and preventing equal opportunity for all. This is working against what our country stands for.
Though we may agree, we both agree, just to represent what our country stands for, it is important that we do not discriminate others in doing so. We would like to reiterate that we support the people that have been with me in this country that have been living here. Really quickly, I'd like to do a shameless plug. Our weekly meetings are every week. Hold on, this is calculated.
Every weekend, Friday, Saturday, tomorrow night, in Doheny Beach City, which is just right down the hall, we actually have a really great guest speaker. who's going to be talking about criminal justice in the room. So if you'd like to join us tomorrow night at 5 p.m.
for the EBC, you can talk to I.F. who's a typical Democrat. Thank you.
There's no cross-examination on this portion. Awesome. I'd like to thank all of you so much for coming out. Could you please give a round of applause for the former president?
Also, for those of you interested, so the Transpolitical Forum, we hold informal debate at our weekly meetings. Something like this, just scaled down a bit. If you like getting involved, if you like seeing cross-party politics, is what we do here tonight, we meet Monday nights at 6 p.m. in Social Science Lab 159. Find us on our Facebook page and share the live stream to all your friends. Thank you.