Where Do You Stand?
http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/dont-give-us-your-tired-your-poor-your-huddled-massesFor: Kris Kobach
For: Tom Tancredo
Against: Julian Castro
Against: Tamar Jacoby
For The MotionWhile corporations benefit from the cheap labor illegal immigrants provide, American citizens are left with depressed wages and higher taxes to cover illegal immigrants_ use of government services.
Amnesty only rewards illegal behavior and punishes anyone who has gone through the process of entering legally.
The majority of illegal immigrants are here today for economic opportunity and this leads to a lack of assimilation that is essentially destroying the ideas and ideals that bind us together as Americans.
We need to enforce the laws that we have and secure our borders. The Center for Immigration Studies has used the government_s own numbers to deduce that simple, consistent law enforcement can reduce the number of illegal immigrants to half within five years.
Against The MotionYou can_t wish away the millions of illegal immigrants who are already here, and prohibition has already shown the difficulty in enforcing unrealistic law. They must be given a path to becoming legal.
We must increase our immigration quotas. Even in this economic downturn there is a need for both high-skilled and low-skilled immigrants, and as the economy improves, this need will grow.
We need to help immigrants assimilate and we cannot underestimate the appeal of American values and our democratic way of life.