Transcript for:
Spring Debate on Immigration Overview

okay okay hello everybody welcome to the spring debate on immigration thank you all very much for coming this debate is being hosted by the trans political forum so thank you very much all for attending uh before we start i just want to outline the structure of the debates you all know how this is going to go so in the beginning uh each team our first one is going to go through some introductions of the chairs and of 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 a uh just a back and forth sort of debate between each other their conversation then we'll have some questions from the moderators and then we'll move into uh 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 respond to any anything their 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 a 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 uh try to post that question later on as many questions as we can get that just make it a much more interesting discussion so now just uh to introduce myself my name is rhys disney i'm going to be one of your moderators tonight uh i'm one of the associate justices on the judicial board and 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 introduces themselves real quick hello my name is kimo gandal 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 uh my name is robert i used to be the chair of the uci republicans about two years ago currently i'm the chief of staff of the california republicans and um i'm also a fourth year this is my last debate and i guess um interesting facts about myself i drive in new york my name is outreach chair i study political science and educational sciences and i look forward to this hi my name is cassius i'm on the board of college democrats i'm on the board of college democrats as well as our vice president and i'm double majoring in political science and urban studies so kind of like politics all right so with those introductions out of the way we will open the floor to the argument for the amnesty call democrats all you amnesty is an official pardon granted and created for people who have been convicted of political offences the current question posed regarding granting amnesty to undocumented immigrants 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 the 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 we must not forget that the very laws we refer to have been a product of racist political rhetoric the immigration debate has been defined by racism and xenophobia for decades in fact here's a little history lesson the term illegal immigrant originated in 1939 as the british slur towards jews who are free 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 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 engaged in unauthorized employment marking a firm affirmation of the spirit living 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 rather we often hear whether it be the use of a legal 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 but 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 and that it's time we recognize them [Applause] all right our speech is going to make our platform clear law in order and to put it bluntly illegal aliens are doing exactly what their name implies breaking the law title 8 section 1325 specifically explains that legal 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 uh meta-analysis compiled by the ceo found that illegal immigrants cost the economy up to 100 billion dollars per year even with the 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 education and this will raise unemployment and also harm low skilled workers that are already here some of them being legal immigrants and uh 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 legal 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 rates spiked and even doubled in sanctuary cities after these policies have been implemented and the department of homeland security found that 62 of the lisa aliens and sanctuary cities are have criminal records and also more shockingly the government accountability office found that 20 27 of federal inmates are unauthorized immigrants number three embassy is unfair to legal immigrants who are already here or trying to get you the traditional wait time to enter the country legally is anywhere from five to ten years sometimes even more and the amnesty sends the message that it's okay to cut blind and uh 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 dollars in order for amnesty to be implemented according to the heritage foundation if we pass this our solvency will be at stake mortgage mortgage rates would spike schools will be defunded like this one right here that we all love and uh also uh as an econ major i could say that this plan is a fiscal nightmare and the plan that we have as called republicans number one we need to build a wall the crs has found that there is a negative linear association between illegal immigration and having a border wall the first step to solving this problem is to stop the inflow of illegal immigration so that we could uh 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 overseas and to address this we should implement a biometric entry asset program in order to know who is in here and to make sure that the people who have overstayed their visas would uh would be really able to be in timely manner so that they don't overstay and the congress appointed funds appropriated funds for this in 2004 at the recommendation of the 2011 position and i believe it's time that we actually implement this additionally in terms of the way we 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 supposed to be stuck in like 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 uh those who are on uh thank you college republicans your time is something thank you we will now move into some cross-examination since the college democrats opened up i will allow them to begin the examination 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 the blink of an eye is there so our position like i was saying is not in favor of blanket and the state overnight we acknowledge that this is something that needs to take time that we have a large population of undocumented estimates trump then that we should have an integration process but enforce current immigration law yes because that's the current what sasquatch wants they want integration 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 unfamiliar with the language who wait on a waitlist for 16 years they make it extremely difficult and extremely unaccessible to certain people um and so we are so speaking of accessibility man one last question you talked a lot about accessibility yet the government's been claiming this war on poverty many of which illegal immigrants have been put into and this warm heart has been going on since the 1950s and we spent 22 trillion dollars on it and it hasn't changed one bit so do you really think that integrating quote integrating society will do anything but put an entirely new class of citizens those who are permanently impoverished in the population so let's start by breaking now first of all could be um 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 apply for legal status they cannot just because the question was on at um when we look at immigrants in this country uh between 1919 and 2010 there's a huge influx in the immigration immigration of our population so our population is at a five percent [Music] no 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 college republicans uh 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 mass economic food and during that time we saw unprecedented development in the united states what you're saying is a 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 as a people and because we were able to develop our infrastructure we were able to develop people's access 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 actually um yeah and also keep in mind uh um where the topic right now is on dealing with immigration legal immigrants yes like on average their crime rates are lower but the ones who are here illegally because they don't have to go through any background check because here's the thing if you're trying to come here illegally you have to pass a background check if you have any sort of criminal record at all you're not getting it but if you come here illegally people you don't pass any background check or any way for them to verify whether you'd be a good candidate to be in this country or not then of course like on average you're gonna be much more likely to commit crimes in fact a lot of people a lot of people who do come here illegally they are actually part of transnational gangs and that's why you see crime spike in a lot of places like like in santa ana 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 training proves our point rather well i would like to propose a 2007 study on immigration um that reported that immigrant man [Music] incarcerated while the native born men from the same age group was 3.5 and when we're talking about immigrants and our economies specifically undocumented since you're looking for that kind of clarification undocumented immigrants in the united states make up a disproportionate representation the where there's a lot of jobs particularly in the service industry that native when americans simply do not fill undocumented immigrants feel 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 the low-wage jobs in our workforce enables more higher-paying jobs however since last time republicans asked the bulk of the questions and democrats do you have the forward to ask the first questions why do you think the use of the term illegal immigrant is acceptable all right 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 hawaiian slur 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 specific statutory 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 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 addiction in words when we should be advocating policy because at the end of the day your constituents are not worried about it somebody's offended they're worried about if america becomes a better place something that democrats have never done 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 but we should be battling over actual policy so by the way sorry we forgot to mention this earlier we're gonna ask there's no audience interaction until we give you a mic during the audience question portion so um please avoid clapping snapping or especially heckling anyone who's happily will be given a warning and the second time we'll likely ask them this was derived as cassius mentioned earlier um in 1939 as a religious british slurge where the jews were leaning out to germany um so the current policy is developed through like based off of racial be legal that fears not that does not mean it's not something that shouldn't be changed we're saying that the presence of one's body in this country 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 so you so when you so like so when you talk about illegal immigrants that is a legal term and you're just using that term and then just to wait we misused the term that the law stipulates that's interesting 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 alien yeah okay so i'm gonna 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 fading people there's absolutely no evidence to substantiate that now let's look at the other claiming criteria about somehow or not that's probably the most biggest 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 at that time so it occurred way before the 1930s i don't know what you're you think immigration is a problem that just came about in the 1930s that's ridiculous thank you that is time thank you very much uh at this point we're now going to pose a few questions from the moderators for each debater team so uh each question will be intended to be answered by both teams uh we'll begin with the first question so uh many republican figures have uh regarded the so-called anchor baby concept uh as a potential to legitimately under undermine immigration enforcement while opponents on the left have regarded birthright citizenship as being rooted in the 14th amendment of the constitution and regarded the anchor babies issue as a theory argument several democratic figures have expressed that the issue uh in their view is uh 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 u.s citizens at birth and how should the presence of these children affect policy regarding the amnesty of undocumented parents um for this question we'll have uh the republicans begin and for the next question we'll have the democrats begin all right so there's two parts 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 now the question on 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 partnership now do i think there should be an integration process absolutely there should be an integration process but that integration process does not encourage just giving it out willy-nilly and i know the democrats are going to try to raise fate and say oh it's disenforcing this 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 citizenship should be something fought for not something provided for did you fight for your american citizenship you have been born on american grounds you have been raised in america with american morals in american communities you have gone to american schools you have been opened up to the opportunities that are within america that should be granted to you if you were born here you cannot you cannot change the fact that you were born here i would also like to reiterate the point uh their children are more than twice as likely to go to college furthermore immigrants are also entrepreneurs all right so that's an incredibly skewed statistic because that doesn't discount that just counts 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 it's part of what comes here about an established system things that we can definitely attach to and i'm sorry if you can't attach to america as a culture but america is more america is something greater than just a random placard given out 30 seconds 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 were 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 coming down thank you very much well now move to the second question many democrats many democrats excuse me have argued that bringing undocumented immigrants legally into the workforce would help our economy by increasing consumption of tax revenue uh 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 the u.s society we'll begin this time with the democrats um it has been noted that immigrants regardless of their status fill the growing gap between the low-skilled jobs and the shrinking pool of newborn americans who are willing to take such jobs there was a specific case where um where jobs were opened up and no immigrants were there to fill them as they were noted they were not allowed to hire any undocumented programs and no american citizens came to replace those jobs and in turn they had to get 2000 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 referred 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 agricultural centers and the state in just a period of one year saw a 140 million dollar uh there's nothing that says you can't have a get legal guest worker program because that's a legal work visa that you're thinking about and the agricultural jobs will be felt that way and uh but also keep in mind in terms of the rest of the economy amnesty hurts low-skilled workers the most illegal immigrants already here and people who are like in very downtrodden in an influx of 12 million illegal immigrants giving them amnesty is going to completely destroy that job market unemployment is going to skyrocket and uh an additionally big number that i'd like to mention i said it before i said again 2.3 trillion dollars that's how much it's going to cost to pass amnesty and to get 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 the more 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 more amnesty is just going to lead to more illegal immigration we've seen this um in 2013 what in 2014 when uh during the times where there were talks about uh about amnesty being passed to congress there were about 50 000 unaccompanied minors who were exploited by human traffickers to try 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 and you uh incentivize even 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 uh 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 any 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 perfect all right so let's go over something first their entire case is about moral decision making allow me to ask you one thing first most there are a lot of great legal immigrants who came to this country people who worked through the system people who work long and hard to achieve their legal status rob is from russia he's the immigrant here i'm from the hawaiian islands and 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 anyone should be allowed to stroll into this country and claim to be american you're 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 hard-working immigrants earned then let's talk about your plan to systemically impoverish 20 or 12 million people permanently since the 1960s under president johnson and his quote war on poverty the american government spent over 22 trillion dollars 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 when we put upon the social welfare system only i don't know probably to vote democrat that is what plan is i'm going to take a quote from ronald reagan in this present crisis government is not 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 democrat plan which permanently impoverishes people and this has 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 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 with how how immigrants help the economy now there was one they signed the 2007 study there's 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 new statistics that's like comparing huntington beach in santa ana and observing oh huntington beach crime went down i bet the people in santa ana 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 for their statistics it's a massive problem in academia we need to talk about the methodology behind these studies then look on top the economic market their only economic argument is oh it will damage the labor sector robbery brought up how we're solving what guest visa programs we can control what the economy means 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 for american citizens so i have the size of a market 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 republicans that's the end of your time democrats at this point you will have a chance to present your summary and or give any uh arguments or responses to arguments that were particularly regarding undocumented immigrants and their composition in our labor force undocumented immigrants comprise a disproportionately large percentage of our labor in the united force hundreds of thousands of immigrants are here working and employed in the united states these same people that you say legalizing causing drain on their systems they're already working here they're already doing these jobs you cannot say that legalizing them would cause that because they're already here by you claiming our amnesty program will somehow cause an influx of jobs into the economy first of all we're not saying anybody on both sides of the aisle understands that that's a ridiculous proposition what we're arguing for is a legalization of current undocumented minors people that are already um [Music] most of these [Music] even though they are already working in these jobs providing for us so suspicious consistently support the argument that you as more children of immigrants undocumented immigrants are more likely to go to college they're less likely to live in poverty of the politics of our country to acknowledge them also they are currently paying taxes they make up 10.6 billion dollars worth of state and local taxes providing them an amnesty will only contribute more this will [Music] 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 100 billion dollars per year you say they only contribute 10 so let's do some math what is 100 minus 10. what's 100 minus 10. right so the net deficit would be 90 billion right right it's basically that 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 i think that in order to agree to that i would like to see the breakdown of the 10 um i'll give you our source it's the congressional budget office now i know republicans sometimes disagree that i never heard democrats thought they're claiming fake news that's a new thing so do you know what any evidence to substantiate that illegal immigrants on balance are providing more of the economy so let's talk about illegal immigrants in our economy and what they get from us non-citizen immigrant adult and children are about 20 percent less likely to be signed up for medicaid than their poor native counterparts uh they're also 37 less likely to apply for food stamps according to a 2015 you guys have problems examination we will now move into another portion of some moderator questions um this time we're gonna 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 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 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 borders and in internationally accepting and accepting international immigrants asylum seekers we are standing by those right so in terms of um 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 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 like 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 whether or not they pass a background check or whether or not they essentially cut the line together 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 an argument a privilege to say to allow priority to people who cross into the country illegally just because they have 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 illegally because all the spaces are taken taken up by the people who get amnesty and frankly i would i find it completely unfair like for example when i came here for my family to get a visa and walk and most immigrants who are in my position they spend more time on the ten years so why is it fair for them to for them to wait even even more time and so that we could grant amnesty to people who can't even pass the background and are following criminals it's fundamentally unfair and as for helping others and human rights like we have sympathy for uh people who want to come in but we have to make sure that people come here 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 um so at this point we'll now have 30 seconds by response to each group beginning with the democrats [Music] providing amnesty to the people with anyone who are already in the united states is not only people who are just coming here there's plenty of people who are also here searching for a safe home away from their country when we talk about privilege and you mentioned privilege so i'd like to talk about undocumented immigration our immigration policy disproportionately favors with the strength of this country disproportionately favors the wealthy second question this one will start with the college republicans yes all right 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 rapes double it's literally the term yeah 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 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 into 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 the idea of making the school a sanctuary campus in order to protect 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 all right 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 this is oh let's just talk against donald trump that's all that policy implies the policy doesn't do anything all it is is the middle fingers the republican establishment that's all it does and it threatens every student now that's what 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 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 response they can't suddenly decide oh we're going to go violent constitution they can't do that that's not their jurisdiction this is insanity you're allowing a student government to take over federal law and i just want to point out how crazy that is and to the point that we even got there and also i'd like to add that the accident would have wouldn't even have any jurisdiction in this and all i will be doing is putting both of this it's going to put a fiscal target on our backs because we're going to lose a lot of funding and this is something that's supposed to benefit all of um all the pci and kind of interesting that asucci is considering this too because more or less obviously and they've had to they've had to increase their fees lately but i bet um they're still going to have some problems especially if trump follows through with this which you probably will and also i just paint this as extreme virtual signaling that they have no power to actually enforce and they they try to think that a slap on the face is worth a shot in the head more or less thank you the college democrats have two minutes there is no legal grounds for the federal government to remove funding from a place for when they declare sanctuary says when the government when the federal government particularly gives funding to a locality whether it be locality or the state unless they impose conditions on that funding from the get-go 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 sanctuaries or withholding federal funds from those cities that can be unconstitutional and that's because it violates the principle of federalism that exists in our constitution local governments are given certain authorities and rights that the federal government cannot impede on and one of those rights is what i've just mentioned about funding for cities who cannot impose conditions on funding particularly when it comes to law enforcement infrastructure and other priorities all right 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 three million of them because it's been illegal it's been illegal and it continues to be illegal and the student 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 be 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 that's ridiculous regardless of the impact and it will make in the future 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 who represents us and will stand up for us regardless that's the end of time for this question but we're going to move into audience questions we're going to take uh approximately 10 minutes on this although if there are a lot of questions we'll try to answer as many as possible but uh if the interest of time comes first then we want to cut something um just to clarify how this is going to work so as you're all doing already raising your hand so 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 a question and then you're going to come back you're not going to have the opportunity to follow 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 um something unrelated we will just reject that question yes so no also no personal tax to the debaters this is kept on the topic thank you so we'll just begin like this hi um i have a question for both of you it's kind of the same topic but i think good answers but 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 all right so we'll start on this uh we're going to mental 130.1 to redefine applicable financial institutions to transfer companies like western union and redefine accounts with wire transfers at that point illegal aliens will not be allowed to wire money outside of the united states plus they improve documentation that they are indeed legal that would effectively cut off 24 billion of aid going back to mexico which they have to make up for on their social security net what that means is effectively mexico can either pay 10 billion to build a wall or 24 billion dollars to a bunch of poor mexican citizens that suddenly have their only source of revenue cut off democrats so we're opposed to the wall for a simple reason that i'll elaborate on it but the main reason is it's stupid when we talk about immigration into the united states specifically undocumented immigration the majority of undocumented immigrants came here illegally they're not running over the border as the stereotype of character of them is they come here legally they overstay their visas they fly in they overstay tourist visas or whether they're working understanding furthermore i do not understand why there is this obsessive idea that mexico should pay for that law the majority of legal immigrants contrary to popular men also i would like to bring back the point that you made about the asucci [Music] unfortunately that is time next question let's take someone from this side uh for the college democrats i have both for the amnesty and everything um the college democrats amnesty do you believe um 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 please repeat the question um are you advocating for citizenship or legal status and how do you define between those two so what we're talking about amnesty is to to become a citizen united states first you have to have legal status so without first giving people sense it is impossible for them to then become citizens so we talk about amnesty but first we want to give legal status to those documents and then we want them to have a pathway to citizenship all right so uh we find so giving citizenship to people here legally and insults to the people who like to work hard to come here legally and uh in terms of how we would try to integrate the people 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 uh and also you mentioned military service i will be open to something along the lines where somebody can serve their country for a given number of years and come back and um and be eligible for legal status and maybe like i wouldn't say citizenship but at the very least legal status that their kids can become citizens i would i would consider military service to be acceptable enough for that for breaking the law okay thank you very much uh the next question will be your edward yeah shortly after the election there was this huge group of people they were arguing with me and 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 native 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 knows the question directed at either of them i mean you know this campus has a group for a certain type of racist hispanics asians but there's no white group on campus i'm not even european descent 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 answer answer please answer come on um what about european 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 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 unemployment how about that e-verify okay uh whoever would like to respond first sure okay so you verify i think it's a good system on his 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 could 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 well fixed because yes they are able to get fake social security numbers like kevin de leon no okay yes actually yeah that's a good point okay yes that's actually true but when it comes down to it at the end of the day we want to 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 i'm sorry jetski verified because that would really we cited a harsh immigration law passed and that caused a huge shortage in the laker market and ultimately was severely detrimental to the agricultural economy our next question is going to be over here um this question is for the college republicans only um are you guys familiar with the immigration reform and control act of 1986 even specific are like yes i'm aware of it yeah it's just in regards to the advocacy 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 amnesty but i feel that if you guys familiar with this act you would know that it's not like that i'm familiar with it in that uh like it wasn't exactly like like like basically there were about like 20 million people or something that received uh amnesty that way and the problem is in exchange for doing that we were supposed there was supposed to be a concession where we would get much more security so that this would not become a problem anymore however since uh 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 very 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 coming in illegally because i think i think illegal immigration is bad in and of itself for everybody involved both for the country themselves because what kind of life 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 it's that's for everybody hello how are you doing um so i want to kind of assess the economic economic factors of amnesty um there has been studies done with economic models particularly cg which is a computable gender equilibrium model and that model is specifically focused on how policies would change the current situation of the country so it's a policy is a lot of feasibility modeling is allowing feasibility of policies based on this model focus on a specific county but its studies they find that in la county it will amnesty or comprehensive immigration reform of afsc as they call it would bring 1.5 trillion additional gdp over the next 10 years to the u.s um and increase it by 84.84 it would have significant increase in california in general um a 1.9 billion increase just for la and then also they also produced a study on you know just having legal status but not necessarily providing amnesty and they found that it will only increase it by 0.44 and uh only bring 792 billion gpa over the next 10 years and finally they found for mass deportation to decrease the economy gp by 110 trillion over the course of 10 years so i want to uh understand you know what the cost republicans or you guys think about how this model says in this situation or if it's about right so to answer this question it's largely methodological so for one have you ever gone to east l.a 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 to the poverty and they continue to cycle welfare now the problem is if you cross by earlier what i talked about they begin to then take from those welfare systems and then on net 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 balance it's bad remember when i will exercise my college democrat friends over here about the difference between 10 and 90 like or 90 being the net deficit that's a big difference so at the end of the day it's net benefits analysis and then on top of that remember when you're looking at counties those economic models are skewed because they take previous correlations attempts to find them in a way that is beneficial or is going to increase the same you don't actually know that it's purely assumptive and on counties i have a serious problem because then you potentially comparing santa ana on hb and that's not an actual empirical analysis i just want to know that this model has been known to be uh impartial was your question also directed at the college democrats which is the republicans i would just like to comment on what you had mentioned about the a significant amount of money on private prisons that hold hold people for years and years and years we will be providing and for them for years before they are actually deported so i mean would you rather than be working contributing to our society and filling jobs so that helps citizens or would you rather than be sitting in a prison consume thank you uh next question there was one up here um this is directed to the or the democrats so if i'm an illegal immigrant so rephrase if an illegal immigrant is an undocumented citizen if i sold drugs would i be called an unlicensed pharmacist 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 i just want you to answer yes or no this is implied um 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 so by their same i guess we could say a murderer serial killer was an unauthorized butcher there's there's no 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 take from the system they commit crime we even brought up facts that they disproportionately rape in sanctuary cities these are full facts and the reason we bring these up is there are problems we have people like unlicensed pharmacists that they negatively affect the population so what we're speaking for is simple practical policy okay thank you um you wanted to ask a question questions my name is arthur shopper 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 steinle ruben morphine and the average of 25 americans a day who are killed by illegal aliens and for the republicans though don't don't you're not let you off easy so there was an amnesty bill in 2013. 13 republicans voted for it why start with the democrats please so when we're talking about children of native-born citizens murdered by undocumented immigrants 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 could i would like condolences to those families but that does not you cannot generalize i got smacked yesterday by an illegal i asked a question to the republicans please avoid uh please avoid speaking without the microphone thank you all right so uh to arthur to answer your question uh i could call uh i guess the reason why they did that is they they thought it was like some political uh game to try to like get more uh get more support from from his bank americans maybe and maybe they think that some of the economic arguments for the that might be worth it uh personally myself i disagree with that decision i would not have voted for it that i've been in the senate obviously because of the people that we stated before and also because it's an economic nut loss and worst of all it reincentivizes 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 general we look at the specific problems in it because legislation is very long it's lengthy so don't try not to generalize legislation because it's so complicated thank you very much senate rob sorry if you want to ask another question just raise your hand again um so given that the republican party specifically california is facing a shrinking voter base among immigrant communities specifically among uh latinos we also have peer covenants to show that millennials are among the least involved republican party in voter registration as as latinos so considering the uh traditionalist social values predominantly held by uh immigrants and community members of latin american descent um do you think that the republican party can afford to take such a hard-line stance on immigration given that that latinos are becoming a an ethnic majority of the state of california right 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 be used in the promised land number one it's a complete fallacy because there's uh there's institutional uh loyalty to the local democratic parties in these areas already and number two more importantly it's kind of insulting to say that uh you can just you know dangle a piece of candy or madness in this case towards a group of orders and assume that they're just gonna like automatically support you because of that or uh or to assume that like these people are single issue voters that's that's definitely not the case some of the most conservative people that i know happen to be able to know and 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 half that are happening that the police are not enforcing because of some because somebody in sacramento decided was politically incorrect to do so we need to tackle those issues and we need to actually be tougher on crime in order to protect the people here legally i think that's the end of the time were the democrats what's the question okay i actually would like to add something to that um i commend that a large proportion of these populations choose to vote democratic and not to vote republican because they're signing with the party that represents their interests and acknowledge that they are contributing members of our economy that deserve to be acknowledged okay thank you this question is um more aimed towards the college of troublekinds i do welcome the college democrats to respond as well so today in this debate uh you've mentioned a lot about these background checks and implying correctly my wrong implying that these background checks would happen before they entered the country meeting no criminal action in this country yet but with these background checks how does that account for corrupted governments such as where my family is from in north korea where my grandfather who's a refugee is labeled as a political um 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 though oh um directed at college republicans why do you want to hear from the college thank you all right 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 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 checkers 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 [Music] when in such cases attention is 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 thank you let's take another question um let's go somewhere let's go over here um hello so i have a question for college democrats and republicans so um to college democrats you said that you should give um undocumented immigrants legal status and then eventually citizenship so what about um documented immigrants or like legal like visa holders who already applied for citizenship or gift card should we give should we like automatically give them citizenship um also to college um republicans um you said that illegal immigrants um should be deported right but what about um people who came here legally and then overstay visa and then they married they got um they applied or they they married to a citizen ship holder and be a citizen and baby king says are likely trying to become a citizen should we deport them or like what should be the line who would like you like to answer first okay just we'll just go uh democrats first republicans um my our personal view is that in those who are already going who are already have hold legal status and are working towards citizenship the aim is to get those who are undocumented to the same legal status and then 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 into citizenship so to preface this question i am never in favor of damaging fat 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 and i would say that would be a uh answer best uh solved by a justice because it depends on the context which they came to this country especially if you'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 uh to be a wall bill to keep out this kind of huge flow of illegal immigrants that are coming in 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 50 billion dollars seems to be obsolete and kind of just a political rhetorical tool to marshall support for the current origin and kind of otherwise a certain group so please i would like to hear your input and college would like to comment that'd be great all right first off uh i don't know what years you got that data from because uh at some point while the economy was like in the tank like around 2009 2010 uh that info did go down but uh it has risen up again recently especially after 2013 2014 when they uh when they announced uh when they announced the polls for amnesty so to answer that question on the data specifically for when i asked 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 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 yeah both of us would like to add something briefly to that uh just to bounce off what kimono said actually the voters do not approve that approach uh overwhelmingly uh the current administration did not win the popular vote neither did the current majority in the house of representatives so that argument is delicious uh we also idea of the wall being more as you said slap to the face as we have met zero people coming in here thank you you're waiting uh yes thank you well just uh 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 or something and i'm wondering why should we want to import people right into this country who think that we still land from them right that do you think that they think we wronged them why should we want people who hold those views uh to be in this country because many of the people who are undocumented immigrants and i guess this is for the democrats but the republicans can comment to why would we want people which many of these illegal immigrants are who view that america stole their land and view also that of 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 um i don't believe that it's necessarily immigrants coming from other countries claiming that we are stealing land from then as we have been here for hundreds of years we have worked with the native americans though i don't think that's a valid argument to say uh i wouldn't exactly call this like a broad assessment of the entire group but we fully and completely condemn these uh protest organizations who seek to do nothing but divide and to try to try to like create a race war between uh between uh latinos and whites for one but i'd also like to say that this kind of goes back to the problem of um of what happens when you incentivize illegal immigration and you don't solve the problem at its root you have people who don't assimilate mainly because they can't because like you know you live in the shadow of your whole life because that's all you can ever really do as an illegal immigrant when you try to skip the lines again illegally so i think this is just yet another example of why we need to curb illegal immigration stand up and try to encourage them to apply legally as well because if that's the case then you're just breeding groups that that can't assimilate and that have resentment towards the oh yes yeah if you have a review question we'll be giving preference to first type questions so let's all right um so this is a question mostly for you guys the democrats i mean if you talk also whatever um all right so let's say that because you're an amnesty program right you're saying that you know the people who are already here that are undocumented you'll you know give them citizenship and like legal status eventually right yeah okay they're undocumented right yeah okay so say that hillary clinton won the presidency and uh we're going to roll out this you know new amnesty program so i'm a legal immigrant and um 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 had done the same thing like could you just explain that to me real quick so so our position is not in conflict with anything you're saying when you're 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 the ancestors with regard to your situation that you proposed 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 that we support one another granted i may have gone as if or you in the case may have gone through more in the initially in the beginning but it shows that we are making movements forward so that they shouldn't have to so that other people shouldn't have to go through that same process if they understand how difficult it is of course 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 people uh they don't care about how food 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 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 gonna 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 of thousands thanks sir all right so um 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 not by having the judicial issue that's happening right now who cannot reach legal status but are willing to pay income taxes and aiding the economy while it is admirable that these students want to go into universities and everything it just it just stands that they broke the law and they did it they were here illegally do you know what dakgandaba is yes yeah okay so 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'm 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 in 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 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 a legal 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 in this country are unjust especially immigration we do not believe that thank you very much okay we've got a question over here my questions 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 uh with regard in with regards to jobs that korean-american citizens don't actually want to take like for example agricultural jobs low skill manual labor so my question is if wouldn't 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 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 as we've discussed earlier they've contributed 10 million towards the economy and they've cost 100 million i'm 100 billion you 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 like great like checks on the visa program of course to make sure people don't overstay but it's kind of interesting um a lot of the supporters of democratic policies here have um more or less uh reduced illegal immigrants saying oh 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 other class and frankly that is completely counter to the values of the american dream and as an immigrant myself i'm particularly shamed to hear that for this for the sake of time if you don't have a um just most likely due to the lack of time um so all right okay okay uh yeah this one's mostly focused on the college republicans so you say you're about law in order to enforce current laws but it also seems like you're not against changing laws because you seem to be fine with chain with revoking birthright citizenship so don't really um so so don't really say that you're for enforcing current laws if you you are for changing some laws in in accordance to this okay but but but it also seems like to deal with this problem of having a bunch of people here not with it i i guess illegal yeah um you could also just change other laws about their legal status so early on in the 2017 election i looked at paul ryan's website and he had a 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 the citizen into a system and having a one-strike policy and not allowing them to have benefits that are reserved for citizens um it wouldn't allow them to become citizens before other people immigrating legally so it's not like they're cutting in line okay okay um but it seems like after trump got elected uh republican policy shifted to something more nuanced um and more nationalist it seems like is there a question yeah okay so it discourages illegal immigration by making the import the deportation process more efficient and illegal immigration more difficult but it doesn't change the problem that the reason people are illegally immigrate is exactly because the legal immigration process is too inefficient how do you explain this shift to seemingly simpler unknowns unnuanced 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 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 a process of reform so yes they get their birthright citizenship no i don't want them to happen now going to your second question would have nuanced policies i don't disagree i would say the policies now much better and via 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 this policy that should be allocated or advocated or implemented so that'd be my response to the paul ryan question what did the democrats have responsibility was the response just for the republicans okay so um we have one more question um sorry so we wanted to get to all the questions we apologize that we weren't able to get to everybody hi um so i'm actually doing research um on college democrats and college republicans at every uc school so it's been cool going to all the uc schools but my question is um so with this debate on immigration and i guess it's a part a vision of america um in what vision of america do you think democrats or republicans agree upon and what vision do you think they disagree upon and do you think they're ultimately compatible or conflicted is this directed specifically about immigration yeah okay so specifically in regards to integration please so i think uh 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 the future we agree with them on and i guess um i guess uh to like at cash's point i was saying that uh on immigration both parties are doing what our idea of like the initial american dream is the idea that anyone can come here and succeed we just happen to have different ways of doing it and like sometimes like for example with us we care more about the process and we want to make sure that everybody comes illegally 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 moral argument i 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 you just want to make sure that it's a fair process for everyone and nobody chooses the system thank you very much to both teams and thank you for all the other members who give questions we followers who can get to all the questions we're not gonna have to close the call sorry oh yes uh we're not gonna have closing statements from each uh team i'm sorry yeah just because of the second time we're gonna ask you to keep it to one minute if possible we can begin since at the start of the debate we began with the democrats we will begin the closing statements with the republicans um and then uh so what this boils down to is pragmatism versus virtue signal the reason it comes down to that is because the republicans propose economic policy we propose articles where we specify the methodology we propose a three-pillar plan that will counter every part of the immigration plan where 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 crimes the economy is still going to be damaged they have 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 the agro industry even though when i showed them the mass 100 minus 10 still is 90. so there's still a 90 billion dollar deficit there the question was never answered they didn't even answer the fact the cost of amnesty 2.3 trillion so when 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 racists political rhetoric rhetoric demonizing human beings and preventing equal opportunity for all we are working this is working into 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'd like to reiterate that we um really quickly i'd like to do a shameless plug our weekly meetings are every week every week which is just right down the hall we actually have a really great guest speaker karis cooper who's going to be talking about criminal justice reform uh so if you'd like to join us tomorrow night at 5pm 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 also for those of you interested uh so the trans political forum we hold informal debate at our weekly meeting 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 00 p.m in social science lab 159 find us on our facebook page and share the livestream to all your friends thank you