Instigator / Con
logicae's avatar
7
logicae
1488
rating
10
debates
40.0%
won
Topic
#1746

U.S Southern Border Wall

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
3
0
Better sources
2
0
Better legibility
1
1
Better conduct
1
1

After 1 vote and with 5 points ahead, the winner is...

logicae
Tags
Philosophy
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
3
Time for argument
One week
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
One month
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Pro
Christen's avatar
2
Christen
1526
rating
5
debates
70.0%
won
Description

Now I suppose a general description of the rules.

Rules:
(1.) BOTH sides have a burden to prove their positions. (I have noticed this kind of burden swinging in far too many debates. It is a tactic to merely win a debate, not to find truth.)
(2.) Sources are NOT everything. (Something that is also misunderstood is the nature of facts. Facts are NOT automatic guarantees that what you say is true. Facts can be: 1. Wrong 2. Misinterpreted 3. Misapplied to your argument. Lastly you can have a fallacious argument, which is one consisting of logical fallacies, such as contradictions that are unable to be defended by mere facts)
(3.) Basic etiquette. (No character/ad hominum attacks,... etc)

In this debate I will obviously be defending the side that a southern border wall is a bad idea to say the least. I would like to use the weighing mechanism (as we call the scale in debate) to be net benefits or who ever shows the greater number of benefits should win. Another weighing mechanism can be used however, but I think for this debate this is the most concise. For further clarity here are the sides laid out clearly:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For side Pro (For Border Wall): To support (build evidence on) and defend the Southern Border Wall.
For side Con (Against Border Wall): To support (build evidence on) and defend against the Southern Border Wall.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This debate is set up to be quick. We will have three rounds and 24 hours each turn to post your speech, so be ready to respond!

To Truth!
-logicae

Round 1
logicae's avatar
logicae
Con
#1

 “Make it possible for them to come here legally with a work permit, then while they’re working, and earning here, they pay taxes here. And when they want to go back, they go back.”-Ronald Reagan



Background:

The importance of the Border region and refugee crisis

Our southern border with Mexico is 1,933 miles long, of which 1,254 miles is made up of the Rio Grande river on the Texas/Mexico border.
(Citation 1)
 
Economic Significance:
Number of people who live on the border:
The border, and more broadly how the United States defines its relations with Mexico, directly affects the 12 million people who live within 100 miles of the border (Brookings, Citation 2)
USC puts the total trade value between Mexico and U.S at “an estimated $671.1 billion in 2018” (Citation 3)
The problem with Mexico is summed up like this: “Those who are born poor remain poor and those who are born rich remain rich,” (The 2018 Mexico: Social Mobility for Wellbeing,” published by the Espinosa Yglesias Study Center (CEEY)) (Citation 4)

History of the Wall:
 
The very first fencing was brought into place by president Bill Clinton, who, in 1993, built 13 miles of wall on the San Diego border (Citation 5). The most recognizable and more recent border wall policy was instituted in the wake of 9/11, where president Bush signed the 2006 secure fences act which in addition to extra funds and increased border agents, called for 700 miles of barriers and vehicle fencing.
(Citation 5) To date, according to the wall street journal, “654 miles of the 1,991-mile border already had some kind of fabricated barrier when Mr. Trump took office.” (Citation 6) Since trump has become president, 100 miles of wall has been built according to Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf. (Citation 7)
 
History and Context of the Immigrants:
 
The question of course becomes why would all of these people want to come over to the united states and beyond the obviousness of the wealth of the united states, many of those people coming over, originate from countries that are in contrast impoverished. Of the estimated 11 million illegals in the country today, the Migration Policy Institute estimates that 53% of the illegal migrant population is from Mexico and the rest mostly coming from Central and South American countries like Guatemala. (Citation 8) To understand why these people, risk death (7505 from 1998-2018 from numbers sited by the Border Patrol, though this number only reflects deaths at the border itself), we need to look at their status (I will focus on the greatest contributor and most relevant to this debate:
(Citation 9)
 
Mexico
The greatest source of immigrants, Mexico is an important study to understand why immigrants leave their homes. We have all heard of the problems Mexico faces, it should not surprise anyone that the poverty rate, according to an analysis by the World Bank, is up to 32% of the population using the figure of income under $5.50 per day. (Citation 10)
Comparing that to the rate of poverty in the U.S using the same metric, we get 6.5% of the U.S population in poverty. (A difference of nearly 5 times the poverty of the United States!) But poverty is not all that the country faces, corruption in the state and gang violence continues to be a killer: “More than 135,000 people have been killed since 2012. More than 1,300 clandestine graves have turned up since 2007. More than 37,000 people are reported missing. More than 600 soldiers have been killed in the drug war. At least 130 politicians and nine journalists were killed preceding the elections in July […] All told, the government reports 33.6 million crimes with a victim in 2017, an all-time high […] Only one in 6,000 crimes ends in a conviction.” (Manhattan Institute 2019)(Citation 11)
The moral here is that Mexico is a desperately dangerous and poor place. The reason why people risk to come here to the U.S is quite obvious. And where this debate begins.
 
Why is there a problem with people migrating in you may ask? Why not let these desperate people flee the crisis that they find themselves in? I have heard many reasons including fears that these people will harm us or they will be a financial drag. The first reason is not founded by statistical fact, but rather anecdotal example as the Cato Institute highlights, “Illegal immigrants are 49 percent less likely to be incarcerated than native‐born Americans.” This means that fears of immigrants are overblown.
(Cato March 4, 2019) (Citation 12)
 
 
Professor Gordon H. Hanson of the University of California, San Diego stated that “By focusing on the economic costs and benefits of legal and illegal immigration, stemming illegal immigration would likely lead to a net drain on the U.S. economy”
 
1 percent increase in immigrant employment per state leads to a 0.5 percent increase in income per worker.[…] Approximately 90 percent of the U.S.-born labor force gained from immigration (Citation 13)


Significance:
 
Though this is not my main argument, it goes to say that a two thousand mile wall is simply ineffective without proper security to enforce it. There are many ways to circumnavigate a wall including digging, climbing, going around (by boat), and simply sneaking in or over staying visas.
 
(During fiscal 2017, the Department of Homeland Security found that the number of immigrants that overstayed their visas was more than double those apprehended at the border during the same time frame” (Citation 14)
According to the Congressional Research Service, officials have noted that “most illicit drug smuggling attempts occur at southwest [border] land POEs(Ports of Entry).” 34 Consistent with this testimony, CRS analysis of OFO drug seizure data indicates that, on average, over 65% of the illicit drugs seized by OFO from FY2014 to FY2018 were seized during inbound inspections at land POEs within the jurisdiction of the OFO field offices along the Southwest border.35 (Citation 15)
 

Harms:
(1)      Security Compromised
Taking from more important places. I’m not one to argue that much of what the government takes is important, but I know that the first and main reason we have a government is to protect the people. The wall has currently diverted 6.2 billion from “The departments of Homeland Security and Defense, and the Treasury Forfeiture Fund.” (Citation 16)
(2) Contribution to Federal Taxes:
“undocumented immigrants are taxpayers too and collectively contribute an estimated $11.74 billion to state and local coffers each year via a combination of sales and excise, personal income, and property taxes” Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy)(Citation 17)
(3) Decreased Jobs
Findings by the National Foundation for American Policy state viewing data from 2005 to 2013 state that: ““A 1 percentage point increase in the share of the labor force comprised of immigrants appears to reduce the unemployment rate of U.S. natives in the same sex-education group by 0.062 percentage points, on average.
“A 1 percentage point increase in the share of the labor force comprised of immigrants appears to raise the labor force participation rate of U.S. natives in the same sex-education group by 0.045 percentage points, on average.”
People are valuable no matter what prejudices view them, that is why these results come to no surprise. (Citation 18)
(4) Harmed Relation With Mexico:
For Mexico in the words of the Baker Institute: “Since the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, U.S.-Mexico relations have been in crisis. Trump’s criticism of Mexico and its people, his threats to deport millions of undocumented Mexicans by ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, his desire to build what he calls a “beautiful wall” on the southern border, and his expressed intention to abandon the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) all have created serious friction in the bilateral relationship.”
(Citation 19)
Trump’s threats to make Mexico pay for the multibillion-dollar wall does not help either.


(Citation 1) https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS21729.pdf 
(Brookings, Citation 2) https://www.brookings.edu/essay/the-wall-the-real-costs-of-a-barrier-between-the-united-states-and-mexico/
(Citation 3) https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/americas/mexico
(Citation 4) (https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/In-Mexico-7-out-of-10-Born-in-Poverty-Will-Die-in-Poverty-20180509-0008.html)
(Citation 5)http://www.worldstir.com/history-u-s-mexico-border-wall/
(Citation 6)https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-border-wall-mile-by-mile-11550152535
(Citation 7) https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/01/13/homeland-security-officials-tout-100-miles-of-new-border-wall/
(Citation 8)https://www.migrationpolicy.org/data/unauthorized-immigrant-population/state/US
(Citation 9) https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/assets/documents/2019-Mar/bp-southwest-border-sector-deaths-fy1998-fy2018.pdf
(Citation 10)(https://databank.worldbank.org/reports.aspx?source=poverty-and-equity-database
(Citation 11)(https://www.city-journal.org/mexico-corruption-violence)
(Citation 12)https://www.cato.org/publications/immigration-research-policy-brief/criminal-immigrants-2017-their-numbers-demographics
(Citation 13)https://www.americanactionforum.org/insight/immigration-helps-u-s-workers-economy/#ixzz6Bfj30BGs
(Citation 14)https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/08/despite-trumps-claims-most-illegal-immigration-is-not-at-the-southern-border.html
 (Citation 15)https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45812.pdf
(Citation 16) (Politifact August 30th 2019) https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/aug/30/donald-trumps-border-wall-how-much-has-really-been/
(Citation 17)https://itep.org/immigration/
(Citation 18)(https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2018/05/17/new-research-shows-immigrants-may-boost-employment-of-natives/#3832020f1600)
(Citation 19)(https://www.bakerinstitute.org/media/files/files/45e26afb/mex-pub-twocrises-080318.pdf)
















Christen's avatar
Christen
Pro
#2
Arguments:

The whole purpose of any border wall is to make it harder for people to come here illegally. Multiple different countries, not just the United States, have border walls, and they are successfully making it harder for people to enter those countries illegally.

A border barrier is a separation barrier that runs along an international border. Such barriers are typically constructed for border control purposes such as curbing illegal immigration, human trafficking, and smuggling. [1]

Even most of the Democrats who are supposedly against the idea of a southern border barrier such as Barack Obama will at least have some kind of barrier, wall, or fence around their own home. [2]

Thousands of migrants for the past 3 years have attempted to come to the United States from the south. Without a border wall, they would have all been able to easily pour into the country and overwhelm people. [3]

Rebuttals:

We have all heard of the problems Mexico faces, it should not surprise anyone that the poverty rate, according to an analysis by the World Bank, is up to 32% of the population using the figure of income under $5.50 per day. (Citation 10)
Comparing that to the rate of poverty in the U.S using the same metric, we get 6.5% of the U.S population in poverty. (A difference of nearly 5 times the poverty of the United States!) But poverty is not all that the country faces, corruption in the state and gang violence continues to be a killer: “More than 135,000 people have been killed since 2012. More than 1,300 clandestine graves have turned up since 2007. More than 37,000 people are reported missing. More than 600 soldiers have been killed in the drug war. At least 130 politicians and nine journalists were killed preceding the elections in July […] All told, the government reports 33.6 million crimes with a victim in 2017, an all-time high […] Only one in 6,000 crimes ends in a conviction.” (Manhattan Institute 2019)(Citation 11)
The moral here is that Mexico is a desperately dangerous and poor place.
This actually sounds like an argument in favor of a border wall. If it's true that Mexico is loaded with violence, corruption, gangs, crime, and all sorts of other chaos like you say it is, then it would make sense to have some kind of barrier, to keep out some of that bad stuff, and keep some of those bad people from making their way over the United States or something.

Why is there a problem with people migrating in you may ask?
There is no problem with people migrating as long as it's done legally.

Why not let these desperate people flee the crisis that they find themselves in?
This is a loaded question. It assumes that the vast majority of people trying to come here illegally are "desperate" people trying to "flee" something somewhere. We need to make sure they go through the legal process to make sure they aren't a criminal or something. There are criminals that will sometimes try to flee their countries to avoid the police and then try to seek "refuge" in another country. This can happen in the United States, where a criminal here flees this country to seek "asylum" somewhere else, and it can happen outside our country where a criminal flees to try and live here. [4]

Besides, anyone can come here and make up a story about how they're trying to "flee the crisis" in their home country. We need to make sure they're telling the truth before we let them in.

I have heard many reasons including fears that these people will harm us or they will be a financial drag. The first reason is not founded by statistical fact, but rather anecdotal example as the Cato Institute highlights, “Illegal immigrants are 49 percent less likely to be incarcerated than native‐born Americans.”
There are websites such as illegalaliencrimereport.com dedicated to documenting instances of illegal aliens committing crimes and harming people in this country. [5]

This means that fears of immigrants are overblown.
Not fears of any immigrants. Fears of illegal immigrants specifically, and with a website like that documenting the various illegal aliens that harm people, I would argue that fears of illegal immigrants harming us or the ones we love are justified, and for all we know, there could be plenty more crimes committed by illegal aliens that the website doesn't document.

stemming illegal immigration would likely lead to a net drain on the U.S. economy”
Stemming illegal immigration means that the jobs they steal can go to American citizens.

a two thousand mile wall is simply ineffective without proper security to enforce it.
But we do have security to enforce it. We border agents and things like motion sensors, cameras, and vehicles to help catch some of these illegal aliens that try to get in illegally, and even then it still isn't perfect as so many people come here and overwhelm the border patrol. [6]

There are many ways to circumnavigate a wall including digging, climbing, going around (by boat), and simply sneaking in or over staying visas.
It's going to be very difficult to dig, climb, or boat your way into this country illegally. All 3 of those things carry various risks, such as the risk of being easier to catch by border patrol.

The wall isn't meant to stop people from coming here legally through a visa and overstaying it. It's meant to serve as an extra layer of security against people who are trying to come here illegally through the southern border, without a visa.

The wall has currently diverted 6.2 billion from “The departments of Homeland Security and Defense, and the Treasury Forfeiture Fund.”
Well, of course it's going to cost money. Plus if we spend this money on the border wall to keep some bad people out of this country, then it would be better than not spending that money on the border wall, allowing those bad people to come in easily, and then having to spend that money to track down and get rid of said bad people.

“undocumented immigrants are taxpayers too and collectively contribute an estimated $11.74 billion to state and local coffers each year via a combination of sales and excise, personal income, and property taxes
Where exactly is this "estimated $11.74 billion" going? I ask this because places like California were giving free health care to illegal aliens since 2016, at the cost of California citizens' tax dollars, while you have so many homeless sick people there, [7] so why isn't that money being used to pay for peoples' health care and for more housing instead of the citizens' hard-earned tax dollars?

A Washington Examiner editorial noted, “California wants to look after its people, so it keeps expanding its social safety net. It also wants to welcome all comers and so embraces illegal immigrants and protects them in sanctuary cities. To see how this is working out, visit Skid Row in L.A. or neighborhoods in San Francisco or elsewhere where homeless camps are spreading. … Just as California lacks enough homes to house its inhabitants, so it also lacks enough doctors to care for them. The additional budget bloat on health care will worsen that shortage.”

And how will state officials pay for this? They will be instituting their own state-based individual mandate, slapping an extra tax or fine on Californians who do not have health insurance.

(4) Harmed Relation With Mexico:
For Mexico in the words of the Baker Institute: “Since the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, U.S.-Mexico relations have been in crisis.
The only people border walls "harm" are illegals aliens trying to come in illegally through the southern border because it makes it more difficult for them to enter this country illegally.

In fact, Mexico itself has border walls/fences of it's own, [8] so why is it somehow okay for them to have border walls but when Trump wants a border wall it's harmful to relationships?

Trump’s criticism of Mexico and its people, his threats to deport millions of undocumented Mexicans by ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, his desire to build what he calls a “beautiful wall” on the southern border, and his expressed intention to abandon the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) all have created serious friction in the bilateral relationship.”
Trump is right to criticize Mexico. They aren't working hard enough to keep bad people from pouring through. He absolutely should end DACA as that is pretty much a loophole for people to come here illegally and then potentially bring their whole families here. [9] The North American Free Trade Agreement had all sorts of problems too, which he has renegotiated. [10]

Trump’s threats to make Mexico pay for the multibillion-dollar wall does not help either.
Mexico is helping pay for the wall through the USMCA trade deal though. This allows America to make more money off of Mexico, which is able to go towards the wall, and he didn't "threaten" anyone either.

Sources:











Round 2
logicae's avatar
logicae
Con
#3
"He who has a why to live can bear almost any how."-Friedrich Nietzsche

When we take the context that immigrants are looking for refuge from disaster, we must remember that nothing will stop them, you, me, or anyone from achieving the safety of human dignity no matter 'how' big the obstacle. A quick response from Christian, many thanks for this continued dialog. I do have a question though. May we use the usual and neutral term “immigrant” and “illegal immigrant” when we talk about migrants? The term illegal alien is a dehumanizing term and I think we are above that. 

In this round I want to discuss the problems with our 'legal' entry for immigrants and why there is effectively no way for them to escape using legal entry. First though I want to touch on the weighing mechanism I presented in the first round of net benefits. Here is what I gathered from both opening speeches so far: (feel free to correct or add Christian) 

Net Benefits

Side Pro: Stop immigrants from over whelming us, some immigrants are criminals and thus pose a danger to us, wall stops this.

Side Con: Security compromised (Money diverted from our defense), economic disadvantages (Prevents billions in taxes and decreases jobs and pay for native Americans), harmed relation with Mexico, not solution to problem (Does not target or stop main areas of entry and still requires border enforcement to keep immigrants out).

Before I get to my rebuttal of Christian's last speech, I will present the case of our true immigration problem: 

"There is no problem with people migrating as long as it's done legally." -Christian
Immigration Quota Failure

You can’t find many Americans without a rich past of immigration to the land of the free. Immigration has been a key foundation of our culture since its very beginning. Currently we have an immigration quota which means only a small fraction of immigrants are allowed to enter legally. 

(1) Historically low admission rate

The Cato Institute highlights, “Since 1820, the United States admitted on average 30 percent more legal immigrants per capita (0.45 percent of the population per year) than it did in 2017 (0.35 percent of the population)” (Citation 1, Cato Institute)

(2) Current Quota Not Updated Since 1990

“Since 1990, Congress has not updated the quotas for the legal immigration system. During that time, the population of the United States has increased 30 percent and the economy has doubled.” (Citation 1, Cato Institute)

(3) Impact: Immigrants Wait In Line For Decades.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Consular Affairs over 4 million immigrants on the quota waiting list. (Citation 3, Bureau of Consular Affairs)

“Those who are applying for their green cards now will die before they reach the front of the line because so many applicants have piled up in the backlog since 1998. Immigrant workers from India have had decade-long waits, but those applying right now will wait more than a century.” (Citation 1, Cato Institute)

(4) Further limitations
There are even more further limitations on immigrants, for example the “quota for immigrant workers without college degrees is only 5000”, who, as pew research estimated in 2016, “the vast majority have no college degree or U.S. citizen family members who could sponsor them for green cards.” (Citation 1, Cato Institute)
In addition those who run from oppression have it no easier. The refugee limit in the united states is 30,000 (which was cut down from 85,000 in 2016). (Citation 4, Pew Research)

"Although historically the U.S. has resettled more refugees than any other country, its resettlement program has not kept up with increase of the global refugee population that has increased by about 50 percent over the past five years." (Citation 2, National Immigration Forum)

(5) The Real Solution 
Coming in legally is simply not an option, as immigrants are not allowed in. The only way to fix the problem is to do as Ronald Reagan said, let them work for their needy families, pay taxes, and return when things alleviate. This will stop Pro’s problem with illegal immigration, help those immigrants in need, and continue to boost our economy with a work force of immigrants who are quite literally starving to thrive. What doesn't help however to set up a 2 thousand mile wall, which, though does not stop desperate refugees, does take important defense funds, damages the image of our desperate neighbors (and U.S-Mexico relations), and loses valuable hard working citizens who provide billions in taxes and increase our quality of life by increasing jobs and job pay. 

Since this is a debate, I will break my rebuttal into two sections:
(1) Rebuttal of Pro's arguments for wall (As seen in net benefits analysis)
(2) Rebuttal of Pro's response to my case against the wall.

Rebuttal (1)


 The whole purpose of any border wall is to make it harder for people to come here illegally.

Response:
1. Not targeting the problem: a. Failed immigration quota is the problem. b. Most illegal immigration not effected by wall (see argument on Significance)
2. Remember by the net benefits criteria both you and I need to show why the wall is net beneficial given the harms and benefits. 

Thousands of migrants for the past 3 years have attempted to come to the United States from the south. Without a border wall, they would have all been able to easily pour into the country and overwhelm people.
Response:
1. that's just the thing, there was no all encompassing border wall for the past century, but yet we have not yet had this crisis you speak of. 
2. This argument against migration in turn is harming the great majority of migrants who are fleeing from disaster by preventing refuge. 
3. Once more a border wall does not target or solve the problem. (See past arguments on how most illegal migrants enter)   

Rebuttal (2)

This actually sounds like an argument in favor of a border wall. If it's true that Mexico is loaded with violence, corruption, gangs, crime, and all sorts of other chaos like you say it is, then it would make sense to have some kind of barrier, to keep out some of that bad stuff, and keep some of those bad people from making their way over the United States or something.
Response:
1. By no means, because you are assuming that the immigrants will bring crime, though this is a popular political sentiment. 
2. As proven earlier illegal immigrants have have the crime rate of U.S citizens. 

There are websites such as illegalaliencrimereport.com dedicated to documenting instances of illegal aliens committing crimes and harming people in this country.
Response:
This is the part to whole fallacy because you use a few anecdotal examples of bad immigrants in an attempt to prove the rest to be the same. But, as I just mentioned, the fact remains that American's are twice as likely to be criminals. Using this logic even American citizens should be deported and prevented entry.

 Not fears of any immigrants. Fears of illegal immigrants specifically
Response: Semantics. Just because our laws are bureaucratically inept to process all of the immigrants (see quota problem above), it doesn't make the immigrants unable to come legally any different.
  
Stemming illegal immigration means that the jobs they steal can go to American citizens.
Response:
1. Assertion. You haven't yet brought evidence to show immigrants take away jobs from citizens. 
2. You did not respond to the evidence laid out by the National Foundation for American Policy showing that immigrants actually increase the number of jobs. The reason why according to the Case Foundation: "60 percent of the most highly valued tech companies were co-founded by first or second generation immigrants. These include Steve Jobs, a second generation Syrian immigrant, and Sergey Brin, the Russian immigrant who co-founded Google." In addition, "25 percent of all companies are founded by immigrants and Entrepreneur reports that more than 40 percent of businesses on the U.S. Fortune 500 List are launched by immigrants or children of immigrants. This is especially remarkable given that the overall percentage of immigrants in the US is only about 13 percent."  (Citation 5, Case Foundation).
Immigrants create business and jobs, it goes without saying that our nation is one of immigrants and so it makes perfect sense that stemming immigration actually harms business, jobs, and innovation. 

Well, of course it's going to cost money.
Response: But to what benefit? Is not your goal to increase security? Then why divert billions from it?

Where exactly is this "estimated $11.74 billion" going?
Response:

1. I agree with your argument here on welfare, however this problem can be simply solved by ending the welfare state (A wall does not solve this problem).
2. 11.74 billion in extra taxes is still a benefit, just because our government wastes some of it in welfare does not mean the money itself is a negative.

The only people border walls "harm" are illegals aliens
Response: Assertion, you overlooked my analysis for what the wall negatively implicates for our relationship with Mexico. 


This is a ton to think over, so I encourage Christian to paraphrase my rebuttal to save room. (I should have added more characters ;( 

To Truth!
-logicae



Citations: 

Christen's avatar
Christen
Pro
#4
Side Con: Security compromised (Money diverted from our defense
What do you mean we're "compromising" our security? A border barrier improves our security and aids in our defense against illegal immigration through the southern border. Diverting some money from our defense to improve our defense is somehow a bad thing?

economic disadvantages (Prevents billions in taxes
The cost of keeping out illegals from simply walking across our border will pay for itself so we don't have to invest that time money and resources into tracking them down and getting rid of them after they freely walk across our border and enter the country illegally due to us not having any barrier.

harmed relation with Mexico
We need to prioritize our country over Mexico. We keep worrying too much about what other countries think of us and not enough about solutions to our security. If Mexico has a problem with Trump trying to make our country safer from illegals that want to come in from the southern border that's too bad. It's also hypocritical since they have various border walls and fences of their own and aren't afraid of how those barriers affect relationships. They know how useful barriers are, yet they don't like it when we have barriers.

Does not target or stop main areas of entry
It's not meant to target or stop main areas of entry. It's mean to target certain places that are not main areas of entry and make it harder for people to sneak across those places and into this country illegally.

still requires border enforcement
Which we already have, along with cameras motion sensors and other technologies.

Currently we have an immigration quota which means only a small fraction of immigrants are allowed to enter legally.
There has to be some kind of limit on how many immigrants can come here. Our country doesn't have enough housing, doctors, supplies, money, and resources to accommodate all these thousands and thousands of migrants. Our detention centers are already overcrowded. We've reached a point where we must say enough is enough. [1]

Coming in legally is simply not an option, as immigrants are not allowed in. The only way to fix the problem is to do as Ronald Reagan said, let them work for their needy families, pay taxes, and return when things alleviate.
What Ronald Reagan wanted was a middle ground solution to the issue of illegal immigration. He may not have specifically advocated for a border wall, but he never advocated for people to be able to freely come here illegally either. He supported both policies that helped immigrants become legal citizens to promote legal immigration, and policies that make it easier to enforce immigration laws to make it harder to enter this country illegally. [2]

“Border enforcement was a concern, as it had always been, but it was a period where the president supported efforts to change laws in ways that would strengthen the immigration system and make it possible to enforce immigration laws more effectively,” Meissner said. “It was an era where immigration was a bipartisan issue, in which both parties worked at coming together to find solutions despite hard-fought policy disagreements. And President Reagan signed those bills."
In fact, Reagan signed a sweeping immigration reform bill into law in 1986, which made any immigrant who entered the country before 1982 eligible for amnesty.
“I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and who have lived here, even though some time back, they may have entered illegally,” Reagan said during a 1984 presidential debate.
Two years later, the Immigration Reform and Control Act also made it illegal, for the first time, for an employer to knowingly hire an undocumented worker.
“Future generations of Americans will be thankful for our efforts to humanely regain control of our borders,” Reagan said at the time, “and thereby preserve the value of one of the most sacred possessions of our people — American citizenship.”

Those who are applying for their green cards now will die before they reach the front of the line because so many applicants have piled up in the backlog since 1998.
Like I said, we are getting more and more overcrowded with immigrants. The number of them are exceeding our space and resources. Because of this, the lines will naturally get longer and longer. If they don't want to wait in a long line, they are free to go seek refuge elsewhere. I know how much you want to play the superhero and save them all, but we can't save or accommodate them all, at least not until we can drastically increase the supply of our resources and housing. Some will die, sure, but it is what it is.

What doesn't help however to set up a 2 thousand mile wall, which, though does not stop desperate refugees
Even if it doesn't stop certain refugees it will at least slow them down or force them to take alternate routes to get into this country, which can increase their chances of being caught trying to get in illegally.

Most illegal immigration not effected by wall
Even if illegals come here and overstay their visas, at least they had to go through some kind of checkpoint and be checked to make sure they weren't trying to smuggle anything or bring disease, and that they aren't criminals who are already banned from the country. The ones who sneak across the southern border on the other hand are going to be far more dangerous since they aren't checked at all, they can't be screened for diseases, and they can smuggle in any dangerous little thing they can carry.

there was no all encompassing border wall for the past century, but yet we have not yet had this crisis you speak of
Well, times have changed and now we do have this crisis so we need some kind of barrier for those coming through the southern border illegally.

is harming the great majority of migrants who are fleeing from disaster by preventing refuge.
The fact that they "are fleeing from disaster" cannot, does not, should not be used as some kind of shield to protect them from having to follow our laws like everyone else. If they want legal entry into this country, they must be checked first. They must go through the legal process, or go away and seek asylum elsewhere. It's not our responsibility to blindly accept every immigrant just because they are going through something or trying to flee something.

you are assuming that the immigrants will bring crime, though this is a popular political sentiment. 
2. As proven earlier illegal immigrants have have the crime rate of U.S citizens.
Even if they're doing half of the crime that citizens do, they're still doing crime regardless; crime that could be prevented from being committed by those who enter illegally through the southern border with some kind of barrier to make it more difficult for them to come in illegally. If there were 1.2 million crimes committed in 2018, [3] and illegals committed half the amount of crimes American citizens commit like you said, then that means that American citizens have committed at least 800,000 crimes in 2018 while illegals have committed at least 400,000 crimes in 2018. (800,000 + (800,000/2)) = 1.2 million

And if the 1.2 million crimes does not include crimes committed by illegals, and instead all 1.2 million of those were committed by American citizens, then that would mean that illegals commit at least 600,000 crimes. (1,200,000/2) = 600,000

So technically, illegals committing "half the crime" is still too much crime that's being committed by these illegals. A barrier will make it harder for some of them to come in through our border and commit those crimes.

This is the part to whole fallacy because you use a few anecdotal examples of bad immigrants in an attempt to prove the rest to be the same.
No. I used that to show why stronger border security is necessary, to make it harder for those kinds of bad people to just walk across the border and into the country without being checked first.

Plus, how many more crimes do illegals who come across the southern border have to commit in order for stronger southern border security to be necessary? Why do we have to wait until the "few" anecdotal examples grow into millions of anecdotal examples to finally do something about our southern border and make it more secure?

Just because our laws are bureaucratically inept to process all of the immigrants (see quota problem above), it doesn't make the immigrants unable to come legally any different.
Not being able to come here legally does not automatically mean that you get, or should get, to come here illegally freely.

You did not respond to the evidence laid out by the National Foundation for American Policy showing that immigrants actually increase the number of jobs.
Because that article was mostly referring to legal immigrants, not the illegal ones. The legal ones are fine because they went through the process and were checked to be safe to allow into the country to work.

You haven't yet brought evidence to show immigrants take away jobs from citizens.
At least 8 million illegals were working illegally as of 2018. [4]

The idea is that they work low paying jobs because American citizens don't work those jobs, but if they were removed, the employers would have more money left over to pay American citizens, which would make them want those jobs more again.

1. I agree with your argument here on welfare, however this problem can be simply solved by ending the welfare state (A wall does not solve this problem).
2. 11.74 billion in extra taxes is still a benefit, just because our government wastes some of it in welfare does not mean the money itself is a negative.
I didn't say anything about welfare specifically. I want to assume you're referring to their free health care, but again, the money used for that is coming from citizens' tax dollars, not that 11.74 billion, so again where is that 11.74 billion going?

Sources:




Round 3
logicae's avatar
logicae
Con
#5
In this final speech I want to do a quick recap of the major issues and give several voting issues based on net benefits. 

Final Responses

What do you mean we're "compromising" our security?
I mean just what I said. The wall is diverting 6.2 billion from "The departments of Homeland Security and Defense" *See Harm 1 of round 1*

Throughout this debate there were two main assumptions by Christen. First he assumes that the wall will accomplish the prevention of immigration:

A border barrier improves our security and aids in our defense against illegal immigration through the southern border.
However he did not provide any evidence to this assertion and to the contrary I have pointed out several weaknesses that undermine this assumption. Firstly and most importantly, that most illegal immigrants and drug traffic do not come in through areas without a wall. Let that sink in. As I also pointed out also in round one, the main problem is found at the points of entry (which are the entry points between the wall) and the over staying of visas. A wall misses the point of the problem, failing to target the problem areas. Secondly there is the issue of enforcing a 2 thousand mile wall (which still needs to be accounted for). Not only can a wall be scaled, dug under (as drug cartels often do), but so often walls provide a false sense of security (a great example is the Great Wall of China which China blindly thought was their solution to the mongol threat) *See significance point of round 1*. 

Secondly Christen assumes that immigrants can come through legally. However despite this popular political sentiment, as I have shown in the last round, the outdated immigration system and quota ends this possibility. 

We need to prioritize our country over Mexico.
Harming our relations with Mexico is a harm to ourselves in trade, war, and other times of need. The only prioritization here is that of harm.
It's not meant to target or stop main areas of entry
That is the point of having a wall. If it does not target the main problem, it is insignificant and thus a waste of money. No one advocates to spend money on a minor problem, but to spend billions from necessary defense funds? This still needs justification.  
Which we already have, along with cameras motion sensors and other technologies.
Yes, but only on current walls.
There has to be some kind of limit on how many immigrants can come here.
Agreed, but the current limit, as I showed, is outdated. 
Our detention centers are already overcrowded. We've reached a point where we must say enough is enough. 
I agree actually. This further adds to my point that legal immigration is approaching impossible. 
What Ronald Reagan wanted was a middle ground solution to the issue of illegal immigration.
He argued to lesson the burdens on immigration to give immigrants a chance to work here. You missed the point of the quote.

Even if it doesn't stop certain refugees it will at least slow them down or force them to take alternate routes to get into this country, which can increase their chances of being caught trying to get in illegally.
Assertion. You have not provided evidence for the wall's effectiveness. 
Even if illegals come here and overstay their visas, at least they had to go through some kind of checkpoint and be checked to make sure they weren't trying to smuggle anything or bring disease, and that they aren't criminals who are already banned from the country.
You made the contradicting point earlier that our system is not set up to handle more immigration. You are ignoring the problem immigrants have of legally immigrating. A wall does not solve this problem, only a reform of our immigration system and quota can fix it.

Even if they're doing half of the crime that citizens do, they're still doing crime regardless
You did not respond to my conclusion: "Using this logic even American citizens should be deported and prevented entry."
It is human nature for some people to be evil (this is obviously unavoidable), but to say that you reject helping the vast majority of innocent immigrants for the crimes of a few is a part to whole fallacy at best and a dangerous precedent. To think that these immigrants are actually two times less likely to be criminals then the very people in your neighborhood...well it puts this whole thing into perspective.

If they want legal entry into this country, they must be checked first.
Again they can't be. You have yet to connect the dots here. If they could they would, but as shown they cannot.

how many more crimes do illegals who come across the southern border have to commit in order for stronger southern border security to be necessary?
The answer here is simple. Keep it consistent with our crime rate. Same level of crime, same level of precaution. Half crime rate? Not a big problem. 
The legal ones are fine because they went through the process and were checked to be safe to allow into the country to work.
You missed my response to this. This is an argument of semantics. The only difference between legal and illegal immigrant is a piece of paper. 

At least 8 million illegals were working illegally as of 2018
Yep, but still not evidence of taking away jobs from citizens. The only evidence given was that of immigrants creating more jobs and increasing job pay.

I didn't say anything about welfare specifically. I want to assume you're referring to their free health care
Call it what you like, the answer I gave still stands. 


Voting Issues

"One of the greatest mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results" -Milton Friedman 

V(1) Security
To begin with, I understand the position that Christen takes here. Many people like the idea of being safe, but we must examine reality to see what our ideas actually mean when they come into fruition. 
Christen makes the mistake of judging the wall by the intentions of it and not the evidence for its effectiveness or need.
Net Benefits
For security a wall does not target the problem, wastes needed defense spending, and distracts us from the real problem derived from the immigration quota. We need to be able to process to protect. This is of course a net negative for security 

V(2) Not The Problem
As stated before the problem is not the areas without a wall (in most cases there is a natural barrier such as a desert instead), but is the lack of attention to the legal admission process including an outdated quota system. 
Net Benefits
Once more we can see a net negative as we waste resources, time, and effort on a non issue. Christen still has yet to show why our resources are necessary to be poured into a Great Wall of China like project. 

V(3) Harming not Helping
This voting issue is simple. There is a ton on the line for desperate immigrants, our economy, and security. 
Net Benefits
While I still have yet to see evidence of any concrete benefits from christen, I have shown numerous sources showing the significant importance of immigration ( more jobs created, billions payed in taxes, and net gains in citizen's income. Diverting our focus into stopping immigration is harmful at best and certainly shouldn't be considered when it has only been shown to be beneficial. 


To Truth!
-logicae 


Christen's avatar
Christen
Pro
#6
What do you mean we're "compromising" our security?
I mean just what I said. The wall is diverting 6.2 billion from "The departments of Homeland Security and Defense" *See Harm 1 of round 1*
You did not explain how using money to build a border wall harms or compromised our security or defense, and neither does your source. Both you and your source simply state that 6.2 billion is taken to pay for the wall but never explain how this harms or compromises our overall security. If anything, it helps improves our security and defense against illegal immigration through the southern border, at areas that are not ports of entry where the wall is set up, by making it harder for people to go through those places illegally.

he did not provide any evidence to this assertion
I listed various countries that use border walls and explained how they make it harder for people to enter those countries illegally.

wall misses the point of the problem, failing to target the problem areas
They may not target all of the problem areas, but they do target a pretty big chunk of the southern border that people go through. I don't know the exact distance that the wall covers but you did say in round 1 that it was at least "1,933 miles long".

Not only can a wall be scaled, dug under (as drug cartels often do), but so often walls provide a false sense of security (a great example is the Great Wall of China
If the wall is revealed to have flaws that people exploit too much, you don't give up on the wall because of that. You work on fixing those flaws, or at least making those flaws harder to exploit.

If people are scaling a certain part of the wall, you either make the wall higher, or you have more/better security, surveillance, motion sensors, and/or agents to monitor those areas more often to stop them if you can.

If people are using tunnels to get in illegally, you find those tunnels and destroy them so they can't keep using those tunnels anymore.

If people are using hacksaws or something to cut through the wall at certain places, you fix the wall, make it stronger so it's harder to cut through, and/or monitor those areas more often.

That goes for China's Great Wall of China as well.

If people come in illegally through the main ports of entry, you focus on improving those main ports of entry to make it harder to get through there illegally as well. You don't just give up on that.

Even if you do all that, and people still find a way in illegally, you still shouldn't give up. You send Immigration and Customs Enforcement to work on tracking them down if you can and get rid of them as opposed to giving up and letting those illegals roam free, but at least then you've make ICE's job easier since, with better border security at ports of entry and areas that are not ports of entry to make it harder for some people to enter this country illegally, and even stop other people from entering this country illegally, that's less illegals for them to track down and get rid of.

the current limit, as I showed, is outdated
You didn't show that it was outdated, and none of your sources about this said that it was outdated. All you showed was that you didn't like it. I went through each of your sources that talked about our current limit and typed Ctrl+F "outdated" ... nothing.

In fact, despite claiming multiple times that it was outdated, you didn't even first explain what you meant by "outdated" and define how many years, months, weeks, or days old it had to be for you to consider it outdated. Like, does it have to be over 10 years old to be considered outdated? What about 5 years? 2? 1 and a half?

You don't explain any of this before claiming it's outdated so we have no way of measuring how "outdated" it is. You can argue that you don't like it and that you want to see it changed now. You can argue that it's unfair, or that it's mean or something. You can even argue that you outright hate it, but you can't argue that it's outdated since you didn't first establish how much time it needed for it to be outdated and why that amount of time was the best amount of time to judge if it was outdated.

The more we get overwhelmed with immigrants that we can hardly afford to care more, the stricter our immigration standards will have to be. That doesn't mean it's outdated nor does it make it outdated. It just means that we're trying not to get overwhelmed with far more migrants than we can handle.

Donald Trump himself has made it clear that "The United States will not be a migrant camp and it will not be a refugee-holding facility". He says this not because he hates all immigrants or something, but because America realistically can't save or take in every single migrant that wants to come in. We're already being generous enough taking in and taking care of the amount that we already do take in. Now we need to slow down the amount of migrants that come in so we don't get overwhelmed.

You did not respond to my conclusion: "Using this logic even American citizens should be deported and prevented entry."
No, American citizens who commit crimes should be punished according to the law, and illegals who commit crimes in this country should be punished and deported.

to say that you reject helping the vast majority of innocent immigrants for the crimes of a few is a part to whole fallacy at best and a dangerous precedent.
Here you've committed 3 fallacies yourself.

First you commit the strawman fallacy by saying that I am rejecting helping the vast majority of innocent immigrants for the crimes of a few, which I am not. I am simply advocating for better border security and giving examples of what happens both with and without better border security.

Then you commit the fallacy of begging the claim by making that argument assuming that the vast majority of them even are innocent who don't break any laws, even though they are already breaking the law by entering through the southern border illegally, which would be harder to do with various improvements to our border security, including a physical barrier, and not only that, but we can't even verify that they're truly innocent if we let them come in illegally, which would also invalidate your argument that they are even innocent to begin with.

Finally you commit the not as bad as fallacy by saying we should not have a border wall to make it harder for people to enter illegally because more crime is shown to be committed by American citizens.

On top of all that, I've shown that illegals have committed at least 400,000 crimes in the United States.


Those are some really big numbers and percentages. It's definitely not "a few" crimes we're talking about here like you claim. We need to make it harder for people to enter this country illegally and cause such harm, and one of the many ways to do that is with a physical barrier.

Conclusion

My opponent:

  • Failed to clarify how using money to pay for the wall and other forms of better border security harms and compromises our security when I have shown that it does the opposite.
  • Did not clarify where the billions in taxes supposedly contributed by illegals go towards.
  • Repeatedly confused illegal immigrants with legal immigrants throughout the entire debate, and proceeds to cite sources talking about the good things that legal immigrants do while I was focusing mainly on illegal immigrants, and then, when I called my opponent out on this and clarified the difference between legal and illegal immigrants, my opponent accused me of "semantics" and still refused to properly distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants, saying that the only difference "is a piece of paper" when in reality, legal immigrants were examined and confirmed to be safe to allow into the country, while illegal immigrants were not, and then my opponent continues to talk about, and cite sources talking about, the good things that legal immigrants do such as increasing jobs, thinking that it successfully rejects the need for the border wall, even though the border wall is meant for illegal immigrants, not legal ones.
  • Downplayed and disregarded the hundreds of thousands of crimes committed by illegals because according to my opponent the massive amount of crime they are committing isn't "enough" to warrant tougher border security.
  • Argued in favor of allowing more and more so-called "innocent immigrants" to pour into the United States even though they cannot be proven innocent if they come in illegally.
  • Ignored that America is already taking on more migrants than it can handle.
  • Complained about how better border security would affect our "relationship" with Mexico without explaining exactly how, cited a source that does not explain exactly how, continued to complain about this throughout the debate even after I already pointed out the hypocrisy and double standard where Mexico has walls and barriers of their own, and did not explain in detail why our arbitrary "relationship" with this foreign country is more important than making the United States more secure from illegals that want to come in through the southern border.
  • Argued that because the border wall isn't 100% perfect, has some flaws, and does not target something it isn't meant to target, then it must be "insignificant and thus a waste of money" even though many other countries have them.
  • Used lots of appeals to emotion to justify more immigration and less border security, using emotionally charged words and phrases like:
Why not let these desperate people flee the crisis that they find themselves in?

The term illegal alien is a dehumanizing term

It is human nature for some people to be evil (this is obviously unavoidable), but to say that you reject helping the vast majority of innocent immigrants for the crimes of a few is a part to whole fallacy at best and a dangerous precedent.

There is a ton on the line for desperate immigrants