April Briefs: Immigrant Guest Visas

This topic has been highly contested within US politics. Since the early part of the 1900’s (it became increasingly stringent in the 1920 but began as early as the late 1890’s) the United States began imposing immigration quotas. These quotas have kept the Chinese out (with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1892 and 1902) and have even caused Jews, fleeing persecution from Europe in the 1930’s to be turned back to the oppressors they were fleeing.

April Public Forum Debate Topic
Resolved: The United States should issue guest worker visas to illegal aliens.

Overview
By Terry Hatch
2003 National Champion
Ted Turner/Public Forum Debate

As April is upon us, I want to once again encourage you all to sign up for the Victory Briefs Institute at UCLA from July 3rd to the 16th. Myself and a very talented coach of the University of South Carolina will be instructing the institute. I want to mention a couple of things about this institute. First, this is the ONLY institute that has had competitors in the event. I have personally looked at the other institutes and their staff, and I could not find one staff member who competed in Public Forum debate. This camp has both Glenn and my personal experience of both coaching and competing. We will do everything to pass on the skills which have won us as well as the people we have helped coach on the state, regional, and national championships in high school and college. Sign up soon! If you have any questions refer to the website where there is a recently updated description of the institute. You can also e-mail me if you have any questions at thatch@gwu.edu

This topic has been highly contested within US politics. Since the early part of the 1900’s (it became increasingly stringent in the 1920 but began as early as the late 1890’s) the United States began imposing immigration quotas. These quotas have kept the Chinese out (with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1892 and 1902) and have even caused Jews, fleeing persecution from Europe in the 1930’s to be turned back to the oppressors they were fleeing.

The issue that the resolution attempts to reconcile is whether guest visas should be issued to individuals who came to the United States illegally. The tumultuous word in the resolution is “illegal.” That word is going to be the pinnacle of many debates because it is going to be where the negative will be able to split hairs. They will be able to say that although there are economic incentives to allowing work visas for immigrants, that the fact that we would reward individuals who came to the country by giving them a visa would be counterintuitive. Why reward those who did something wrong? Positive reinforcement? This is not elementary school, illegal immigration is a threat to national security and convincing the judge that work visas would be a good idea is going to be quite hard…

That being said, don’t concede if you end up being the affirmative. There are a lot of compelling arguments as to why we should offer these visas, some of which might actually serve the interest of American National Security as well as economic security. Arguing that providing visas allows screening and security checks will bring people out of the shadows and will allow officials to at least know who is in the country despite how they got here… This is really important and I will emphasize and elaborate on it in the affirmative brief, just keep this thought in the back of your head.

As for other general comments on this resolution. This topic is going to be very political for a lot of people (read: a lot of judges). Many of your judges are of course community members and with a topic such as this one, it is going to be a trick to strike a balance in argumentation. The key, like I said last month, is framing the debate. This debate will have to be taken one step further though.

You are going to have to force the judges to put aside or at least ignore their preconceived notions. I know this sounds a little daunting, and it will be difficult. The big question is how to do such a thing. The answer is comparative advantage or as other people know it cost/benefit analysis. You need to weigh the advantages versus the disadvantages and in doing so you need to TELL the judge (for example) that despite the inherent wrong and lack of legal righteousness to come to another nation illegally, that the issuing guest visas will at provide some remedy to the “threat” that they pose. (I am not saying that immigrants are a treat, I am simply showing how to insinuate the conscience of the judge in an effort to win the round.)

Simply saying that illegal immigrants aren’t a treat to national security because often times the people who pose the greatest threat to our security aren’t seeking work visas, isn’t going to win you the round. It will be arguing on multiple levels, the psychological preconceived notions as well as rational, unique, and intuitive lines of logical reasoning. Failing to combine these different levels will make winning a round almost impossible given the wording of the resolution. I would stress this a lot less if the resolution did not include the word “illegal” but it DOES…

Just as I warned about some judges having a bias AGAINST immigrants, I am also going to warn about being anti-immigration… Avoid ethnocentric arguments, they can and will make you look racist… There are judges on both extremes, that being said ADAPT!!!! Make mainstream arguments grounded in solid theory as well as solid policy. Make the implications (whether you are aff or neg) explicit. Do not attempt to be the absolute internationalist and cosmopolitan in your affirmative case and on your negative case the absolute isolationist with ethnocentric tendencies in your negative case…

That being said, my last suggestion is to strike the balance and frame the debate in terms of “SO WHAT???” Answer that question for your judge and you are likely to win the round. Make this issue matter to them, how will it affect them??? Make it real, not abstract or impractical. People respond differently, be aware, read your judge and do your best to make it matter to them. Whether it be jobs lost because of immigrants domestically or the ability of a person to escape the bonds of poverty by escaping (like millions of now “native” Americans) the boundaries of their country to come to the Land of the Free, you have a lot of room to appeal to the judges.

Good luck. E-mail me if you have any questions: thatch@gwu.edu

Before you read the briefs, read a little background on America’s Immigration Policy and the Proposed Policy set forth by Bush:

http://www.americaspolicy.org/commentary/2004/0405immigreformTP_body.html

April Public Forum Debate Topic
Resolved: The United States should issue guest worker visas to illegal aliens.

Affirmative Brief
By Terry Hatch
2003 National Champion
Ted Turner/Public Forum Debate

It can be said in no other way: illegal immigrants are already here, they are already working, and they are avoiding government regulations whether it be by being employed illegally, avoiding taxes, or the like. Problems arise through expensive costs associated with workplace injury due to substandard work conditions and lack of workers compensation due to unreported employment of workers. This results in deaths, increased medical costs, lawsuits, and loss of efficiency. Inevitably workers are exploited for simply wanting a better life.

Playing the “American Dream” alone is not a winning strategy; I do however think that it has the ability to have some influence in a judge’s mind. People come to the United States to build a better life. The restrictions to become a citizen are tough and the quotas are strict, most people don’t know how tough or how strict… So spell it out for them. I have provided several links that give such information, incorporate it, but don’t over do it.

The way I see it is that the major issue in the debate is why should illegal immigrants get special privileges for coming to the US illegally while others are going through the process the right way? It is a difficult issue. Just as damning though is the fact that what is done is done, the ethical question has to be back seated to the more practical policy issues involved. There are an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the US. The practicality of deporting or even capturing this many people is absolutely unreasonable!!! 11 million people is the populations of multiple states combined. Creating a policy to purge the US of that many people is unachievable.

That being said, we have to accept the reality that millions of people are here to work, to make a better life for themselves and their family. Something does have to be done. Make sure you are not seen as a complete sympathizer of their actions and that you recognize the flaws of the status quo. This recognition will open the doors for supporting a policy similar to but not identical to President Bush’s.

It is going to be important to create the delineation between what Bush’s policy would do and what granting visas would do… Bush’s policy, in a way, could allow for the gaining of citizenship for those who came here illegally… It COULD and IS (by some, not all) a phased in Amnesty policy of sorts… The important thing is not to say that word… It is a word people do not want to hear, because when they do they associate it with an increase in governmental welfare obligation.

The things you want to highlight are as follows, and are in level of importance:

First, work visas provide for better national security. Knowing the populations within a nation’s borders, knowing where this source of labor is concentrated, what they are doing, and who is employing them all provide a concrete place for monitoring for suspicious activities. From drug trafficking to arms trafficking, knowing who, where, and what provide an undeniable increase in security.

When you make this argument it is important you point out a couple of things. First, people will be able to be screen because they have to apply for the visas, this acts as a gateway to security. Second, information breeds efficiency. If the government wants to be able to draft, implement and enforce better legislation they need to know where to focus. If there is a high level of illegal immigration to particular areas and particular fields of work then appropriate legislation that is more accommodating can be proposed instead of having a broad sweeping policy that drives illegal immigration up. Finally and most importantly, this policy is in opposition to doing NOTHING!!!!! That’s right… Use this argument against the negative. Say that the affirmative is the only way to actually do something about the problem.

An affirmative ballots, above all, means that we can at least begin to determine who is in the US. The negative on the other hand just drives illegal immigration further underground because it upholds a status quo policy that doesn’t enforce border policy as it should and at the same time does not want to do anything to find out where, why and what all of the illegal immigrants that are here are doing. Portray the negative as a advocate of inaction and continuation of failed border policy, while saying (citing evidence) that your policy will create economic benefits while at the same time allowing the government to do background checks on the people applying for the visas.

The negative is going to make several arguments. First they are going to say that the policy won’t work. This is true to some degree, but the appropriate affirmative response needs to be that inaction is worse than less than 100% perfection. Moreover, articulate that no policy is perfect and that expectation of such a thing is unrealistic, idealistic, and preposterous, that instead we should take steps to dealing with the problem rather than driving it underground or allowing it to perpetuate itself by not acting at all.

The second major argument that you can make is that guest work visas are only temporary. They allow for us to determine who is here for the right reasons and whether they are being contributing members to society while at the same time allowing us to weed out the people who are acting as a drain and detriment to the security (economically, politically, and socially) of the US. Even if the program only has a 50% registration of illegal immigrants that is almost 6 million more people that we will know about than we do now. This is an enormous number.

Be careful of inconsistent argument coming out of the negative. For example, if they say that the government can’t handle the problem and then they say something else has to be done, like closing the borders… This is a major inconsistency in line of reasoning. If we were able to secure the borders we wouldn’t have illegal immigration and thus we would not be debating this topic. It exists however, the government has amazing capabilities to implement and enforce complex policies, it is not always perfect and they can by all means be improved upon, but for the negative to argue inability to handle the one proposed by the affirmative and then in the same breathe argue for more secure borders is a contradiction…

Third, there is a moral argument to be made in favor of the immigrants. Granted they are here illegally, but think about the condition they (and their families) are trying to escape. They work in deplorable conditions, their kids may have to work to supplement income, working standards and regulations on hours may not exist, above all their in no ability for them to make anything of themselves. They come to America in an effort to make a life for themselves and their family. Most modern day Americans are descendants of immigrants who were either: forced out of their country by persecution; fled to build a better life; or to simply start over with new opportunities that were not available elsewhere.

This is an idealistic argument, one where you can get some major points if you find a story of an illegal immigrant who escaped political or religious persecution in an attempt to save their children from being sold into prostitution or the like. These stories are not hard to come by because they are very real and sadly not uncommon.

The last argument that I am going to suggest is that having tons of illegal immigrants creates a drain on the system. It does this in several ways. First, when children are born here they are then citizens of the US, if they enter the education system, much money has to be spent on things like ESL. Moreover, there are economic costs associated with immigrants and medical costs. Their costs are absorbed into the system resulting in higher medical costs for everyone, yet they aren’t paying into the system because technically they are not employed. These are very real impacts to all of us. Medical premiums are out of control and only getting worse, the education system is to a certain degree is in shambles, and yet we aren’t willing to try to solve the problem at its root.

Granting visas would be a moderate step at getting at that root. It would provide the ability to treat the system that creates economic detriments such as raising health care costs and education costs.

Above all, keep this at the forefront of your judge’s mind, the affirmative does something while the negative does nothing. Action versus inactions which is more compelling when economic, political, and national security is on you mind???

April Public Forum Debate Topic
Resolved: The United States should issue guest worker visas to illegal aliens.

Negative Brief
By Terry Hatch
2003 National Champion
Ted Turner/Public Forum Debate

Simple question to pose at the beginning of the round… Why not give guest work visas to those people who are doing their part to legally become citizens of the US? Not too complicated if you ask me. What is going to be hard for the affirmative to explain is why we would reward bad behavior. It doesn’t make sense to a lot of people. We can all sympathize with people wanting a better life for themselves and their family but what about if it is at the expense of another person doing it in a legal form? Should it become a game where you lose when you play the game by the rules? With the affirmative that is what you get. As the negative you have two options… Negate the affirmative or negate the resolution… You may think they are the same thing, and they can be but often times there is a distinction.

When you negate the resolution you are negating the entirety of what is being argued. The distinction comes in when the affirmative begins to advocate specific courses of actions or specific proposals like the one Bush proposed. When they advocate those policy actions there is a way to attack the intricacies rather than the entirety of the resolution.

With this topic I suggest a full out negation of the resolution. Circumstances vary and that may not be the best thing in every case but as a general suggestion, that is my recommendation however. The reason, I think that there is enough literature to argue the damage that such a policy would have. It could be argued that such a policy will have a slippery slope effect whereby, then the problem gets bad enough, the government will create a policy just to find out who is here thus rewarding those who came here illegally.

A major argument that articulated above for the affirmative is the argument that national security will be increased through the implementation of a program to allow guest work visas because there will a circulation of information that allows for the government to know who is in the country. I think that the affirmative can take this argument one step further when they argue this saying that not only will it allow the govt. to know who is in the country but it also allows them to apprehend those who are under investigation or wanted, even if the person that is registering doesn’t know about the need for their own apprehension.

Before I make some suggestions on how I think this argument ought be answered I want to express a reluctance to arguing that “bating” immigrants so we can deport them or question them is ok… It isn’t, it is wrong, especially under the context that we are providing them with some haven to be able to live legally for a period of time, undetermined, within the confines of the US border on the ability to work.

The negative should instead answer this in the following ways. First, those who know they are wanted are not going to apply for a guest work visa because they will understand that the visa is contingent upon no other violations or suspicions of wrong doing excluding them being in the US illegally in the first place. The second argument is that national security is threatened most by people who do not need to work in order to live in the country. The example being 9/11 hijackers… Do you think they took a job at McD’s for a day job while taking flight training during the day???? Nope… They had their finances covered. Terrorists, especially of foreign backgrounds are not going to take a chance on getting a job and being subject to some sort of check of their history by means of a background check or the like. It simply is not worth the risk to them, a couple extra dollars or the carrying out of massive attacks against the US and its interests?

Aside from the damaging effects that a terrorist attack could inflict, is the massive kidney punch that supporting 11 million illegal aliens has on the US economy. Imagine this, (actually you don’t have to imagine it because it is quite common) an immigrant and his wife come to the US and have a kid… He is now a resident because his daughter is a citizen of the US because she was born on US soil. This creates problems in multiple ways. First, low income illegal immigrant workers are unlikely to have insurance and benefits meaning when they go to the hospital to have their child, the costs have to be absorbed into the system because there is no way for that family to pay. Moreover, now that those parents become de facto legal citizens, if they for some reason need medical care and still don’t have insurance their costs will continually be absorbed into the system.

Another cost associated with illegal immigrants becoming citizens is within the education system. Say the family that I just used as an example is predominately Spanish speaking. Their daughter will eventually enter school, whereupon she will likely have to have ESL education in order to teach her English. The costs associated with the extra education to get her up to the skills required to be proficient, in addition to extra costs along the way including translator fees for parents, possibly even literacy costs for parents, inevitably drives up education costs…

These costs are created not only through having a child. It can happen other ways as well. An illegal immigrant could marry a legal citizen and become a de facto legal citizen. Costs are incurred that way as well. These costs are exponential in that they keep growing over time and are more expensive over time because there are more illegal citizens in the country. The costs are exacerbated even further if those workers are getting paid under the table and therefore are not paying any taxes into the system. Not only are they reaping the benefits of the system they are driving up the costs to other consumers including higher bills for education, health care and other vital services.

Another problem associated with illegal immigrants is that they take jobs away from American workers and drive DOWN wages. I am going to address each of these separately but they are fundamentally interrelated. As for jobs, think about illegal immigrants coming to the US as domestic outsourcing (or insourcing as this case may be) EXCEPT the workers come here instead of us sending the jobs to them. This sounds crude and unfair, but it is the true. This is widespread. Bush nominees (like Chavez and prospective DHS nominee Kerik) and even Clinton nominees have had workers who were illegally working for them under the table. Having done this in fact denied them the ability to be considered for confirmation by the US Senate.

The fact that American’s are losing jobs to illegal immigrant is bad and should be pointed out. I think a lot of sympathy can be drawn from this (if you find a good story/narrative) IN ADDITION to the amazing practical implications that the taking of American jobs away from Americans has…

Among those practical implications (in addition to people not getting/having jobs, ect.) is that illegal immigrants (especially those who are paid under the table) drive the wages down for everyone else. The reason is supply and demand. I am not going to go through all of the economic principles at work here but here is a brief outline. Many would argue (republicans in particular and economists [not being partisan]) that there should be no minimum wage that the market will adjust and create a wage at which the supply of labor, meets the demand of work. This means that the market would set the price at the place where supply of labor meets the demand of work… If you look at places where the minimum wage is the lowest it is in states where republican rule (heck even the Federal Minimum Wage is $5.15) the minimum wage is low. States such as Oregon and Florida have both passed minimum wage laws that not only increase the wage over a dollar above Federal Minimum plus they adjust for cost of living each year. For example Oregon’s minimum wage was just increased on January 1st to $7.25 per hour.

Here is where the argument is… There is a minimum wage…. But it is just that: minimum. Increased labor availability decreases the willingness of the market to increase wages when the labor force is low. Immigration keeps wages low because it fills that labor gap that would result in increased wages.

There are several aspects the negative can take. Make sure that you don’t come off anti-immigrant, but that you come off anti-illegal immigration… Be anti breaking the law and pro the American Dream for those who want it and DESERVE it… The debate as I have argued in most of my briefs comes down to framing the arguments.

The last thing I do want to mention is to indict the Bush plan that is being proposed. That is the only coherent immigration legislation that gets close to this resolution. There are a lot of flaws and allows for renewing of those guest visas multiple times, while allowing them to apply for citizenship despite their illegal passage over the border. It has major flaws and is even criticized by fellow republicans. Make use of this.

Good luck and e-mail me if you have any questions.

Last Word
By Terry Hatch
2003 National Champion
Ted Turner/Public Forum Debate

The arguments that I present are but a few that can be used. My advice is to make simple but interdependent arguments. The basis for this is two-fold. Simplicity on a very difficult issue is essential to persuasion. If they don’t understand what you are saying or understand the intricacy of problematical policy issues then the ability of you to pick up the ballot will be difficult. That leads me to why it is essential to have arguments that are interdependent.

Interdependent arguments will generate comprehension. It is a cause-effect relationship. If you force your judge to think in multiple spheres of complexity the likelihood of losing their focus or them getting lost becomes ever more possible. In a way, you case should be constructed like a story book, in that there are no loose ends in the end. Tie all of the concepts together and make sure it is all encompassing incorporating moral, ethical, political, social, and economic repercussions of endorsing or rejecting the resolution.

Invariably, there is no way to guarantee a win, but there are ways to increase your chances. Avoid resolutional extremes, be practical, and above all make reliable and levelheaded arguments making sure that you answer the question “so what?”.

April Public Forum Sites:

http://www.bergen.org/AAST/Projects/Immigration/

http://www.bergen.org/AAST/Projects/Immigration/waves_of_immigration.html

http://www.ihrc.umn.edu/

http://www.fairus.org/Research/Research.cfm?ID=1820&c=2

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=2770

http://immigration.about.com/cs/immigranthistory/

http://www.rapidimmigration.com/usa/1_eng_immigration_history.html

http://www.cis.org/topics/history.html

http://www.ecb.org/tracks/mod9.htm

http://www.crf-usa.org/immigration/immigration_history.htm

http://www.visa2003.com/world-immigration/us-history.htm

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,148380,00.html

http://are.berkeley.edu/APMP/pubs/agworkvisa/proposalgains12599.html

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/07/bush.immigration/

www.ilr.cornell.edu/library/downloads/keyWorkplaceDocuments/CRS/CRSAgriculturalWorkers0801.pdf

http://www.us-visa-now.com/news_10.htm

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20011101faessay5778/philip-l-martin-michael-s-teitelbaum/the-mirage-of-mexican-guest-workers.html

http://www.cis.org/topics/guestworkers.html

www.nfap.net/researchactivities/studies/Nov_study1.pdf

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7255409/

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=1555

http://www.ewic.org/CongressionalHearing/Senate02122004.html

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/4/8/143454.shtml

www.ncaeonline.org/AgJobs2003/Congressional%20Testimony/02-12-04_Papademetriou_Testimony.pdf

http://www.americaspolicy.org/commentary/2004/0405immigreformTP_body.html

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