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That we should repatriate all illegal immigrants

(PRO)
WINNER!
9 points
(CON)
0 points
xcalibur4Christxcalibur4Christ (PRO)
The question on whether or not we should repatriate ALL illegal immigrants is one that has been bouncing around the ears of Americans' for a while now. I do not understand, however, why this is a question. Many people have said it, but it bears repeating: you do not simply show up on your rich neighbor's door step and expect him to let you in, sleep in his bed, eat his food, and spend his money. This example is a good one, but it leaves out this fact - not all Americans are rich. By not repatriating all illegal immigrants, we are financially supporting their being here, whether we want to or not. Whether we have the money to, or not. 
1. What illegal immigrants are costing you
Because illegal immigrants are illegal, they are not getting anything out of welfare. However, that does not mean that they are not receiving the benefits of being in America without being American citizens and paying all American dues. According to the Association of Mature American Citizens, the average "unlawful immigrant household" received somewhere around $24,721 in 2010. They did pay around $10,334 in taxes, making an annual deficit of $14,387. As we already know, but the Association of Mature American Citizens did point out, people who are registered as American Citizens paid that $14,387. If everything that illegal immigrants receive for free, such as free transportation to school provided by school buses, free breakfasts and lunches, and all the other "little" things that tend to add up, that monetary amount is only going to increase. I do not know if you know what your family's yearly income is, but as an American citizen reading this, if you do, let's round the $14,387 to an even 15k. How do you feel about paying 15k out-of-pocket to someone who has no right to be here? Many American families are already doing everything they can to make ends meet. There is a difference between being Americans and wanting to help people (which I whole-heartedly support) and being ridiculous. The amount of money that we pour into people who are not paying taxes, most likely not taking seriously the school that we as Americans are paying for, not being held liable for crimes they might commit because they are "off the grid" so to speak, and are not even supposed to be here - it is ridiculous.
There were 10.7 million recorded illegal immigrants in the US in 2016 according to the Pew Research Center, but then again, that is the number of recorded  illegal immigrants. It is a little difficult to walk up to someone and have them answer honestly as to whether or not they are here legally. Anyway, let us be numerically gracious and say that there are, on average, four people per illegal family. 10.7 million divided by four is 2,675,000, meaning there are 2,675,000 illegal families. If each of those illegal families receive the $14,387 from legal families, they are receiving $38,485,225,000. Yearly. Wow. Thirty-eight billion, four hundred eighty-five million, two hundred twenty-five thousand dollars. Meanwhile, America is in $19.19 trillion dollars of debt. Without looking at the crime rate of illegal immigrants, or the amount of sex trafficking they do, or the number of murders they commit everyday, it is obvious that, yes, we should repatriate all illegal immigrants.
Return To Top | Posted:
2018-12-21 03:50:40
| Speak Round
TheHumbleOneTheHumbleOne (CON)
I will show that repatriating all illegal immigrants is an inapt, unethical response to a real challenge - and that there are multiple more effective ways to answer these challenges.


Let me start by tackling head-on proposition’s only fleshed out argument - that the average illegal immigrant household has a $14.4k annual deficit on average which must be covered by the taxpayer. We’re told that although illegal immigrants don’t pay for welfare, the deficit is explained by the accumulation of ‘little things’ like school buses, free breakfasts and lunches. Interestingly, you’ll note that these are all examples related to education. And indeed when we look at education costs per child in the US we find that, according to the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, they come to an annual $16k. Thus rather than the addition of ‘little things’, we see the deficit per household is more than explained by the cost of publicly funded eduction. If we wanted to turn this annual deficit to a surplus, one potential solution would be to require that children of illegal immigrants pay for public education.

Indeed the current deficit comes purely from the structure of the US benefits system - if proposition is truly motivated by an argument based on cost, I would suggest to them tweaking the availability of benefits would be a much simpler, fairer and desirable alternative than all-out repatriation. 

Thus proposition might have correctly identified a problem, but has done nothing to convince us that all-out repatriation is the best solution. 
I would argue the opposite is actually true - if you repatriate all illegal immigrants, this says nothing of the children of these immigrants born in the US. These US citizens will continue to cost the state for their education, while their parents who would have been paying tax and not benefiting from education will have been repatriated. What irony - you separate the tax payers from the main tax beneficiaries, so as to send only the tax payers away! 


Now that we've spoken about cost, let's turn to the huge ethical questions raised by repatriating ALL illegal immigrants.

Firstly, what about the numerous children of illegal immigrants who are US citizens? According to the Center for Immigration Studies, 300k births a year come from illegal immigrants. By forcefully sending their parents away, proposition is effectively creating millions of American orphans. The reverberations of this will echo down the decades - through the pain we will be causing these children, through the long-lasting resentment they will undoubtedly feel towards the state, and through the myriad of costs the state will incur tackling their increased welfare needs. 
And what about those illegal immigrants who risk death were they sent back to their host country? What about those illegal immigrants who have been able to successfully integrate, like the 900,000 illegal immigrants who are entrepreneurs and generate $17.2 billion in business income each year? Even if repatriation were the only tool at our disposal, would it not make much more sense, both financially and ethically, to repatriate illegal immigrants on a case-by-case basis?


There are many more arguments to be made about the feasibility and consequences of all-out repatriation, but we've began to explorer how inept and unethical this response is - when in fact multiple better alternatives exist. Concretely we've presented two example alternatives - a tweaking of the benefits system to reverse the deficit caused by illegal immigrants, and a case-by-case approach to repatriation which is able to take into account the ethical dilemmas and financial contributions of different situations.

We owe it to the 10s of millions of illegal immigrants and the millions of US citizens that are their sons and daughters to tackle the challenges of illegal immigration in realistic and humane ways. For this reason, I am proud to oppose.
Return To Top | Posted:
2018-12-27 11:06:42
| Speak Round
xcalibur4Christxcalibur4Christ (PRO)

1. As for the Con saying that I only presented one “fleshed-out argument,” I did state fairly clearly in my last post that I had more but was not presenting them all at one time.

2.  Also, I was not saying that the $14k is made up of “little things” like school bus rides and free meals. Rather, I was stating that if you add the cost of all these things to that $14k that illegal immigrants are already costing us, the number is no longer going to be $14k. It will be higher than that. The reason I used education-related topics is because that is what I am most familiar with and to show the indirect effect that a person who is here illegally’s impact makes. Reading off a list of everything illegal aliens cost us would be boring, to be blunt.

3.  “If we wanted to turn this annual deficit to a surplus, one potential solution would be to require that children of illegal immigrants pay for public education.” Con, I can only hope that you are not suggesting that children pay for their own education. Illegality and legality aside, most people in America are simply trying to survive, not give their children a future. However, kids who are here legally and whose parents are here legally are getting pushed to the side as we make way for children who are not supposed to be here. I believe every child should get a chance to succeed – if they are here legally. The children of illegal aliens are getting sent to school because it is cheap baby-sitting, sometimes free to them. But never free for us Americans. We are spending money on the education of illegal aliens’ children, but it is more like baby-sitting.

4.  The Con also said I should consider “tweaking the availability of benefits.” Benefits? Benefits of being American, correct? Except we should tweak the availability of benefits that Americans have, so that we can give them to non-Americans?! I am sorry, but that does not even make the slightest bit of sense.

5.  As for the argument that the legal children of illegal immigrants will continue to cost US citizens for their schooling and existence in the USA in general, first off, most children are only here “legally” because of the DREAM Act. Therefore, they achieved their legality through being here illegally. They should be sent back to their countries with their families if part of their family, parents or siblings, are not legal. If they really want to stay together as a family and they love each other as a family should, they can apply for citizenship when they are back in their home country. Sadly, this is not the case for many families. They use their children as a “Get-in-America-Free” card, which is why they send their children ahead of them. That is not love. The 300k children that Con mentioned should be sent back with their families as well. The fact that they are children does not make them legal. I understand that the Con is probably thinking that is heartless, but he needs to realize that many people have children just to stay in America. That is heartless.

6.  To combat the argument that illegal aliens who are entrepreneurs making $17.2 billion a year, you do realize that they are not paying income tax, correct? Also, 900,000 illegal immigrants?! Thank you for proving my point of how many there are! We make being here illegally far too easy.

7.  Innocent Americans should not have to pay for the presence of illegal aliens, financially or crime-fully, which will be my next point. As a starting statistic, five years ago, 75% of all federal drug sentences were for illegal immigrants (www.dailywire.com). Can I say,"'Nuff said?" I understand that some immigrants risk death when they return to their country; there are some immigrants who have good reasons for being in America illegally. However, when looking at the crime they commit and pain they cause innocent people, it is a risk we CANNOT AFFORD TO TAKE.

We do not owe illegal aliens anything.  

Return To Top | Posted:
2018-12-31 09:20:08
| Speak Round


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