Instigator / Con
TheRealNihilist's avatar
0
TheRealNihilist
1650
rating
44
debates
77.27%
won
Topic
#1116

Border Wall

Status
Finished

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

Winner & statistics
Winner
0
4

After 4 votes and with 4 points ahead, the winner is...

Wylted
Tags
Politics
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
2
Time for argument
Two days
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Winner selection
Voting system
Open
Contender / Pro
Wylted's avatar
4
Wylted
1387
rating
34
debates
22.06%
won
Description

We will be arguing the effectiveness of the border wall. The person who makes the best arguments without sufficient rebuttals will win. I would like it to be based on that which is why there is only one criteria in this debate.

Border Wall: Proposed plan by Trump for a wall between the US and Mexico.

I am against the border wall if you wanted clarification on my position.

The burden of proof is shared.

Round 1
TheRealNihilist's avatar
TheRealNihilist
Con
#1
The border wall is a proposed expansion of the current wall that is in between the border of United States and Mexico. Trump has yet to even pick the materials he would be using or allocate budgets or give an estimate of when it will be done. So to say it is in any position of getting done would be a lie.
 
Pragmatism
What was first being proposed was an entire wall across the US-Mexico border but as many people realised that is not feasible. There is a Rio Grande river and many mountains. Instead of delivering on a wall he has decided to make a concession. Only wanting half of the US-Mexico border filled with a wall. The thing is that a fence already exists but for some reason Trump would like to build a wall. Let’s say the wall was built what would that actually do? Trump has failed to deliver evidence to provide what the border wall can help so since he hasn't it can be said that it would be impractical. My argument revolves around if evidence was given to how effective the wall was it would only help Trump provide a better position for his proposal but Trump cannot which means it is impractical and by extension not worth doing.  
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46824649

Effectiveness
Since both Trump and the instigator failed to deliver what the border wall would actually reduce. I will be assuming this and I think I am fair with these assumptions. I am guessing the border wall would help stop undocumented immigrants, drugs and bad for the economy. 

Firstly, undocumented immigrants are reportedly travelling across the border in record lows. The source below states as of 2016 there are only 5.4 million unauthorized immigrants which fell from 2005 which had the number at 6.9 million. From that source we can see with the current use of the border wall there is less and less unauthorized immigration from Mexico to the United States which means the current use is effective so the burden is on the contender to provide how Trump’s wall would be more effective.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/12/03/what-we-know-about-illegal-immigration-from-mexico/

Secondly drugs are smuggled in using legal ports of entry. This is sourced by the National Drug Threat Assessment. If it wasn’t clear already Trump has made no mention of improving the legal ports and since it wouldn’t be intrinsic to a border wall therefore another problem a Trump proposed border wall will not fix.
http://time.com/5497260/donald-trump-border-wall-fact-check/
Click here if you don't want to find it in the article “National Drug Threat Assessment”

Thirdly the bad for economy point. The labour market doesn't have a fixed number. This can be supported by the second source which states that in 8th of January 2019 there was 6.8 million job openings which increased in 12th of February which had 7.3 million. This number then increased to 7.5 million in 15th March which then decreased to 7.08 million. This clearly shows there is no fixed rate of jobs and with the demand for Jobs needing to be taken increasing it is only reasonable to accept immigrants in order to fill gaps in the market. A case could be made to say that have Americans take that job but by looking at the 3rd source below it states as of March 2019 there is 6.2 million Americans that can fill the job opportunities. The problem of course is that the job opportunities number is higher than the number who are unemployed in the US which means even if every single unemployed American filled those jobs there will still be a need for more employees to fill gaps in the market. This would of course mean immigrants are required so that argument falls flat as well.  
https://theconversation.com/is-immigration-bad-for-the-economy-4-essential-reads-99001
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/job-offers
https://www.deptofnumbers.com/unemployment/us/ 
I can also think of better reasons but let’s just leave it at that. I want to see if Wylted does have good arguments. I have yet to see them and hope that he does.

Wylted's avatar
Wylted
Pro
#2
Trump’s Plan

Trump’s plan for a border wall seems to just be a “whatever works” approach. The amount of plans that would work under that type of attitude is monumental, but for the purposes of this debate, I will discuss one plan in particular I think would work. Almost any plan I could think of would fall under a type of plan Trump would accept. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/13/upshot/detailed-timeline-trumps-words-border-wall.html

Framework

The judges should judge this debate by weighing the impacts of what me and my opponent both say and then determining a winner. If my arguments have a bigger positive impact than my opponent’s I should win the debate. I want the judges to refer to the following 2 guides when judging this debate, most importantly what I am highlighting from those guides as a tool for how to judge the debate. They should explain their impact analysis in their voting decision. 

  1. https://www.debate.org/forums/Debate.org/topic/68208/
  2. https://www.debate.org/forums/debate.org/topic/59367/3

These guides I use when I judge a debate and in fact everyone should adopt the mindset of these guides, but let me highlight the most important tidbit from these guides;

“== Impact Calculus ==

Let's say the topic is "Resolved: North Korea is a greater threat to the US than Iran."

Pro runs that North Korea could attack South Korea at any time, and such a war would draw the US into it. Stratfor estimates show that such a war would cost 400,000 lives (that's the impact).

Con runs that Iran can cut off the Straight of Hormuz, a major oil route. Iran is building the military capabilities to do so and has threatened to do so in the past (the link). If Iran did so, it would cost the US approximately $250 million in lost trade and higher oil prices (the impact).

At the end of the debate, the judge is supposed to weigh: (a) the probability and (b) the magnitude of all the impacts.

Probably ties into (1) how persuasively it was argued and (2) how good the rebuttals are. The opponent can show that the impact is highly improbable by using good rebuttal responses.

The judges are also supposed to weigh the magnitude. Assuming the probabilities were about even as to North Korea provoking a war with South Korea and Iran cutting off the Straight of Hormuz using their navy, then the judge weighs which is more important: 400,000 lost lives in a war on the Korean Peninsula or $250 million.

In this case, Pro would probably win because 400,000 lives outweighs $250 million.

That's impacts and impact calculus in a nutshell.”


I’d appreciate if all the judges took a serious look at these guides, particularly if my opponent can’t explain a good reason to use these voting methods. 

While impacts are important, I have noticed that my opponent has a tendency to only use defensive arguments (See guide for more information on defensive arguments). The problem with making your arguments 100% defensive and 0% offensive is that you only minimize the impacts I show in my arguments. This means I will be the only one with positive impacts for my side of this debate. No matter how tiny of an impact my arguments have, if my opponent has no competing impact, than I will win. I could literally prove the United States would save $1 a year over all, and if my opponent has no competing impact, the judges will be morally obligated to vote in my favor

Conduct.

My opponent if you go to the page where the debates are listed has stated the following thing;

“ Wylted needs to be put in place”


In the comment section of this debate my opponent has written so far;


“2 Rounds wanted 3. Oh well guess I would have to debunk your arguments in 1 Round. Easy enough”


Which implies that my arguments will be terrible. A rude statement.  His conduct while it will most likely be meaningless to the outcome of this debate should be used to decide a winner by any voters who see our impacts as equal in this debate.
Contentions

With the above out of the way, I am also going to copy and paste some previous arguments I have made to prove I can be just as lazy and complacent as my opponent. I hope you guys enjoy this.

The wall I propose is one like we have seen elsewhere around the world. One that has been proven to be effective and affordable. The wall you see below is a rendering of what is on the Iraq-Saudi Arabia border. 

I don’t know how to paste images on this site so please follow the link https://www.debate.org/photos/albums/1/2/1640/7099-1640-w7ps9-a.jpg



The wall will have the following attributes as written by Roy Latham:

" Double fencing has two steel walls 15 feet high and 100 yards apart. Sensors placed between the walls, including cameras, detect intruders. In the most secure design a barbed wire obstacle is included between the walls. An access road allows the Border Patrol to rush to an intrusion site before the intruders can traverse the second fence. Ground sensors detect tunneling. Guard stations are 10 miles apart, allowing any point to be reached in about 5 minutes." http://www.debate.org/debates/The-United-States-should-build-and-maintain-a-border-fence/2/

Why We Need a Border Wall

1. 80% of women and girls crossing the border are raped according to Amnesty international. With 700,000 people illegally crossing the border each year, this is a huge epidemic that a border fence could end. http://www.debate.org/debates/The-United-States-should-build-and-maintain-a-border-fence/2/

One young girl trying to cross into the United States illegally tells her story to “The Atlantic”

“Here comes the lady of the house, and she’s just barely wearing clothes. She opens the door and says, “Good morning, my beautifuls, my princesses!”

We just looked at her.

Right behind her come three men, and this guy is looking at me, and he goes, “I’ll pick her.” The other guy is like, “Yeah, I’ll pick her too.” And the other guy—I didn’t know what was going on, but my friend, she was hugging me, and she said, “No, not her, pick me. Let her go. She’s 15.

They took me downstairs, where there was this little room.

They raped me.

That went on for days, nights. And all I got to eat was a glass of milk with an egg in it, raw, mixed in. They say it will give me energy. For days I was locked in that room.”


I just wish that Donald Trump’s plan to allow more legal immigrants like her while securing the border to prevent this sort of thing had been implemented. Trump’s plan in his own words.

“Our proposal is …….. pro-immigrant……....  It’s just common sense. It will help all of our people, including millions of devoted immigrants, to achieve the American Dream.”

“Our plan achieves two critical goals.  First, it stops illegal immigration and fully secures the border.  And, second, it establishes a new legal immigration system “

“Our proposal fulfills our sacred duty to those living here today, while ensuring America remains a welcoming country to immigrants joining us tomorrow.  And we want immigrants coming in. We cherish the open door that we want to create for our country”


There are a ton of immigrant deaths happening from illegal crossings each year. There have been over 1800 known deaths across the border. http://tinyurl.com/mewk8xs


 We need to put a wall up for some very good humanitarian reasons. 

2. Having no border wall makes it easier for terrorists to sneak into the country. In a one month period of time 18 people from Afghanistan, 79 people from Pakistan and 619 people from China were caught at the border. It is a myth that only Mexicans are crossing illegaly into the United Stateson the Southern border. In September of 2015 two men with definite ties to terrorism crossed into the Southern border. That is just one of many exaples, and doesn't count all the ones not caught. http://dcgazette.com/2016/border-secure-cartels-manage-cut-hole-fence/%20http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/dec/30/pakistanis-terrorist-connections-nabbed-us-border/?page=all

3. Illegal immigration poses a massive public health risk. Illegal immigrants do not get the necessary health screenings before crossing the border.

"disease of the Third World, is readily evident along the U.S.-Mexico border and that dysentery is several times the U.S. rate".

Nearly 60% of all new cases of TB have been diagnosed in foreign born persons. Most of the other 40% probably came from exposure of it from foreign born persons. The Pork tapeworm which thrives in Mexico and Latin America is being seen a lot in border towns and

"its eggs can cause[.] Cysts that form around the larvae usually lodge in the brain and destroy tissue, causing hallucinations, speech and vision problems, severe headaches, strokes, epileptic seizures, and in rare cases death."


4.It's not just the diseases coming across the border that is a problem that is hurting our entire medical system. According to the Las Angelas county supervisor Michael Antonovich.

"We're running an H.M.O. for illegal immigrants and if we keep it up, we're going to bankrupt the county.".

He is not the only person saying this sort of thing Madeleine Peiner Cosman, Ph.D writing for The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons says

“What is unseen is their [illegal aliens’] free medical care that has degraded and closed some of America’s finest emergency medical facilities, and caused hospital bankruptcies: 84 California hospitals are closing their doors.” 

It's no mystery that illegal immigrants are mostly uninsured. They don't have the ability to partake in preventative care measures so they tend to go to the emergency room at double the rate of non illegal immigrants. " As a result, the costs of medical care for immigrants are staggering. The estimated cost of unreimbursed medical care in 2004 in California was about $1.4 billion per year. In Texas, the estimated cost was about $.85 billion, and in Arizona the comparable estimate was $.4 billion per year." In 1994 about 75,000 "anchor babies" were born in California costing taxpayers more than 200 million dollars. Now there are close to 500,000 anchor babies born nationally, given inflation from 1994 and the large number we are looking at well over a billion dollars in tax payer money going towards these maternity ward expenses. http://www.fairus.org/issue/illegal-immigration-and-public-health

5. There is a lot of crime coming across the border straining our resources even further while also endangering our security. Human trafficking across the border is making the criminal underworld rich, worldwide human trafficking is a 32 billion dollar a year industry. http://tinyurl.com/ma6gr38

California spends close to a billion dollars housing illegal immigrants most of them from Mexico and Central America. http://tinyurl.com/amhdpz2%20Nation
 wide the totals are close to 8 billion dollars. http://tinyurl.com/k57fa9q

We need a fence to stop the illegal smuggling of drugs as well as other illegal contraband. Products made from endangered species, bootleg CDs and DVDs, fake luxury products, and fake prescription drugs among other things. The Mexican drug cartels like to engage in kidnapping Americans, we should probably try to put a wall between us and them to make it harder. 

There are a ton of illegal guns crossing the border. Until we secure the border any gun laws we make a very likely to be completely ineffective. http://tinyurl.com/kkc8gzu

6. It's almost universally agreed on that the Mexican government is extremely corrupt. According to a 2014 study ranking the corruption level of countries, Mexico was in 100th place out of 135 countries. As an example of the corruption the government had 43 students kidnapped and killed to stop a protest from occurring to insure an elected official stayed in office. By allowing a high number of illegal immigrants, the United States is making it easier for political dissidents to leave their country as opposed to staying there and voting out corrupt politicians and fixing their system. Having half a million people who are upset with Mexico to leave it every year as opposed to working to change it, insures that the system will stay corrupt indefinitely. The best thing we can do for the long term good of the Mexican people is to shut down illegal immigration to the best of our ability. http://www.forbes.com/sites/doliaestevez/2014/12/11/mexico-among-the-worlds-most-corrupt-nations-in-2014-new-report-says/#3c68ea6f3258


Costs of the Wall

Israel built it's border fence for 2.83 million per mile. http://www.alipac.us/f12/we-can-pay-israels-border-fence-but-not-our-own-269987/%20We I'll assume the U.S. government sucks at doing anything efficiently and estimate the costs at 16 million per mile. (despite all the illegal aliens we could hire at slave wages). According to Mr. Latham again:

"At that rate, 700 miles of the fence would cost $16 B. Ineffective single fencing was built for $7 billion and that should be replaced with the secure double fencing. However, the costs of building the road and overcoming legal obstacles has already been borne. Governor Perry, a firm opponent of the fence about 20 years and would cost $6.7 billion to staff and maintain. He's an opponent so he's probably exaggerating the costs. Amortizing costs, that's a total of $1.1 billion per year. The 2013 budget for the Department of Homeland Security was $60.8 billion, so $1.1 billion would be is a small part of the budget. Costs would be repaid if it it reduced illegal immigration costs by even a half percent." http://www.debate.org/debates/The-United-States-should-build-and-maintain-a-border-fence/2/


Effectiveness of Wall

An article by the blaze tells us:

"According to the most recent quarterly figures published by the Population, Immigration and Borders Authority, 36 people have been caught trying to enter the southern border since January.
It’s an incredible drop after 10,440 were caught in 2012" http://tinyurl.com/kadk4yx
A border fence in the Yuma Arizona not even as close to being as secure to the one I propose has dropped immigration by a whopping 94%. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2008/0401/p01s05-usgn.html
 
 
The Law
 
The United States government has an ethical duty to enforce the law. If we are going to have borders and border laws we need to enforce them. Building a border wall is an effective and humane way to do that. If the country does not make laws it should pass them in a Democratic way, not subvert the law by having intentionally weak border security.Unjust laws do not belong on the books, but border laws are just for the reasons mentioned. If we don't want borders than we should vote to merge with Mexico, but I don't think many people would support that. 
 
"our government, according to the Border Patrol, did not have operational control of 43 percent — or approximately 826 miles — of our southern border."
 
It is just unacceptable for that to occur. It makes no sense to have all this security at airports, when terrorists can pick any portion of the 43% of the unguarded border to just stroll right through. http://cnsnews.com/commentary/terence-p-jeffrey/border-walls-would-humanely-enforce-just-law


Rebuttals

CON says;

“What was first being proposed was an entire wall across the US-Mexico border but as many people realised that is not feasible. There is a Rio Grande river and many mountains. Instead of delivering on a wall he has decided to make a concession.”



Trump has said that he would definitely be willing to use some natural barriers as my opponent’s own citations shows. There is nothing wrong with using the natural topography of an area to your advantage in securing the border.  The Santa Elena Canyon has a 1000 foot drop off into the Rio Grande River. This is a God made natural barrier that is impossible to climb over. It would be pretty pointless to build a wall there.

What was first proposed was not a wall with no breaks in it across the southern border. Donald Trump has always been vague about what building the wall would mean and he has always had the mantra of “Whatever Works” to allow a lot of flexibility in his policy decisions. He was always criticized and was notorious for being vague about his policies, which in retrospect was probably a political strategy so a wide variety of supporters could attach their own ideals to what he was saying. This is a pretty typical strategy of populists and I used it myself when I was running for president of debate.org. Journalists throughout the 2016 election bitched about Trump’s vagueness and confusing rhetoric. Will Rahn a CBS news journalist has this to say on Trump’s rhetoric;

“the vague non-answer answer is a rhetorical trick he keeps reverting to. And while he's considerably less eloquent than Eisenhower in his responses, the effect is the same: the press is left unsure of what he meant, or even whether he meant anything at all.
"Did he just announce a new policy?" we ask ourselves. "Did he misspeak? Reverse himself? Has he ever considered this question before?" The result is that objective reporters, wary of editorializing, produce stories that are really just transcripts of what Trump just said. Trump's message, whatever it may be, is then transmitted to the larger public, and they can make of it what they will.” https://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-trump-confusing-everyone-on-purpose/
 
Donald Trump has said this about his early plans for the wall ;
 
“The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it. Parts will be, of necessity, see through and it was never intended to be built in areas where there is natural protection such as mountains, wastelands or tough rivers or water.....”
https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article195841649.html 
My opponent claims that Trump has never made any arguments that show what benefits a border wall has, but here is a 1 hour clip that has him going over several benefits, such as lowering the amount of illegal drugs entering the country and stopping the rape epidemic that happens to immigrants crossing illegally. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaq2yq7rMic


However if Trump stated zero benefits to a wall, it still would not be evidence no benefits exist. It is just one of those silly rhetorical arguments on his part that falls down when the light of logic is shined upon it.
 
Con says;

“Firstly, undocumented immigrants are reportedly travelling across the border in record lows. The source below states as of 2016 there are only 5.4 million unauthorized immigrants which fell from 2005 which had the number at 6.9 million. From that source we can see with the current use of the border wall there is less and less unauthorized immigration from Mexico to the United States which means the current use is effective so the burden is on the contender to provide how Trump’s wall would be more effective.”
 
I have actually met my burden above, but I will forgive my opponent because he has not had a chance to read my contentions yet. I can tell you, even on the surface this is a silly argument. 5.4 million illegal immigrants a year still leaves a lot of room for improvement. It is still damaging to the country and to the immigrants themselves as you can see from my above arguments. 5.4 million is a staggering number and though the number is not exclusively from people crossing the border illegally, it still shows we need to take border security very seriously.
 
CON says; 

“Secondly drugs are smuggled in using legal ports of entry. This is sourced by the National Drug Threat Assessment. If it wasn’t clear already Trump has made no mention of improving the legal ports and since it wouldn’t be intrinsic to a border wall therefore another problem a Trump proposed border wall will not fix.”
 
Another argument that is terrible when you shine the light of logic on it. The  problem  with his arguments, is that it claims since drugs can get into the country illegally through other means that we should just give up on having secure borders. That because the solution is not perfect, we should just open up the floodgates. You don't see anyone arguing that since patrolling the streets and setting up DUI checkpoints is not 100% effective we should just give up on preventing drunk driving, but my opponent uses the same type of argument for immigration. I am starting to get fat so I occasionally eat a salad. I still drink a lot of beer and eat pizza which is making me fat, but that doesn't mean I should stop eating salad, maybe I should just double down on salads. Does my opponent also suggest that police stop trying to prevent murders because murders will happen anyway? It’s silly to think that because there are multiple ways something bad can happen that we should not try to prevent any of the myriad of causes. Come on Omar, this is silly, nobody ever claimed a wall would be 100% effective at ending all the things it has a big impact on reducing.
 
ECONOMICS


I gave my opponent’s economic arguments their own section because it is his only arguments that come close to being what is referred to in the voting guides I showed earlier in the round, as “Offensive Arguments”. These guides are what I am asking the judges to use in hopes this debate is judged fairly. Here is how the guide written by Blade of Truth as  handed down by Bluesteel has to say about offensive and defensive arguments.


“Offense is an affirmative reason to vote for a particular side. If the topic were: Resolved: All schools should adopt merit pay, an "offensive" argument would be that merit pay would improve educational quality in our nation's schools.
 
“Defense is an argument that merely mitigates the reasons that you would vote for a particular side; it is not an independent reason to vote for your own side. On the same topic as above, an argument that "the test score gains in schools that implemented merit pay are due to other factors" would be defensive. Even if the argument is 100% true, at most is proves that Pro was not entirely correct in Pro's assertion that merit pay improves test scores. But it's not a reason that merit pay is *bad.* For Con, "offensive" arguments are reasons merit pay is bad, e.g. that it would discourage people from becoming teachers.”
 
So far in this debate my opponent has only used defensive/mitigating arguments. The economic one is the only one that appears to have any offense, and honestly the final round of the debate is too late to introduce new arguments, despite in this short format being perfectly acceptable for him to have rebuttals. 
I think Con’s offensive argument here can be summed up as follows in his own word;

“The problem of course is that the job opportunities number is higher than the number who are unemployed in the US which means even if every single unemployed American filled those jobs there will still be a need for more employees to fill gaps in the market. This would of course mean immigrants are required so that argument falls flat as well.”

I’m just going to completely mitigate this point right now by pointing out that we can just allow more legal immigrants into the United States. There is no reason my opponent should prefer that we have some of these same people come in illegally as opposed to legally. If they came in legally they would be able to force employers to at least pay a more fair wage and get government benefits such as medicaid and workers compensation. There is absolutely no reason we can’t have an appropriate amount of immigrants for the economy in a legal way and at least vetted by common sense security measures.
The main problem with the economic argument though, besides the fact we can still have the same amount of immigrants but in a legal fashion, is that being able to fill all available jobs is a bad thing. When employees compete for jobs, it drives wages down. When companies compete for employees, it drives wages up. http://www.economicswebinstitute.org/glossary/wages.htm https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/trump-clinton-immigration-economy-unemployment-jobs-214216
 
My opponent suggests that we should allow illegal immigrants in because it improves the economy by making employers more money. I say we should employ the economy by workers instead of employers by driving wages up. 


It’s also unfair to illegal immigrants that they can’t work legally so employers take advantage of them by paying them below minimum wage and making them work in harsh working conditions. If their pool of workers were legal immigrants who had the ability to go to OSHA or their state labor board without fear of  legal repercussions, than we can stop the mistreatment of working immigrants. 


The New Yorker tells the story of how companies can and do exploit illegal aliens.


“Case Farms has built its business by recruiting some of the world’s most vulnerable immigrants, who endure harsh and at times illegal conditions that few Americans would put up with. When these workers have fought for higher pay and better conditions, the company has used their immigration status to get rid of vocal workers, avoid paying for injuries, and quash dissent. Thirty years ago, Congress passed an immigration law mandating fines and even jail time for employers who hire unauthorized workers, but trivial penalties and weak enforcement have allowed employers to evade responsibility.”



I don’t know about the voters but I don’t give a shit if the economy is worse for those employers, I want the economy to be better for their employees by taking away their pool of vulnerable employees. 

Round 2
TheRealNihilist's avatar
TheRealNihilist
Con
#3
Trump’s Plan
Trump’s plan for a border wall seems to just be a “whatever works” approach. The amount of plans that would work under that type of attitude is monumental, but for the purposes of this debate, I will discuss one plan in particular I think would work. Almost any plan I could think of would fall under a type of plan Trump would accept. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/13/upshot/detailed-timeline-trumps-words-border-wall.html
 
Trump hasn’t even decided on the wall yet you are deciding for him. This is clearly against what I stated this debate was about. Trump’s proposal of the border wall. Him having different answers when you could only have one doesn’t lead to you simply choosing whatever you want. I didn’t I simply said the border wall is not in a state where it would be finished. My arguments stem from the likely positives of the border wall. You on the other hand have already devised a plan from what you want to happen not what will. If you actually thought the proposal you brought about was going to occur, you would have mentioned it.
The debate wasn’t about what plan you choose would work it is about Trump’s plan as in lack thereof. Due to this we are both confined to talking about said benefits. Your attempt to change what this debate is about hopefully is recognized by voters and I wish they vote accordingly to that information.
Framework
While impacts are important, I have noticed that my opponent has a tendency to only use defensive arguments (See guide for more information on defensive arguments). The problem with making your arguments 100% defensive and 0% offensive is that you only minimize the impacts I show in my arguments. This means I will be the only one with positive impacts for my side of this debate. No matter how tiny of an impact my arguments have, if my opponent has no competing impact, than I will win. I could literally prove the United States would save $1 a year over all, and if my opponent has no competing impact, the judges will be morally obligated to vote in my favour
When was this agreed upon? Please do check discord and the comment section and wherever else I have spoken to him. This is my debate and I had rules put in place. Lack thereof rules doesn’t mean we abide by yours. It means you give arguments under those rules not make your own rules.
 
Conduct
Which implies that my arguments will be terrible. A rude statement.  His conduct while it will most likely be meaningless to the outcome of this debate should be used to decide a winner by any voters who see our impacts as equal in this debate.
If this is based on conduct. Do check discord and find out who started this. Wylted did while also carrying on with it. If your vote was based on conduct Wylted has more to blame on that front than I do.
 
The wall I propose is one like we have seen elsewhere around the world. One that has been proven to be effective and affordable. The wall you see below is a rendering of what is on the Iraq-Saudi Arabia border. 
 
This is not about what you want. It is about what is the effectiveness of the border wall. I have laid out Trump’s border wall. You are simply disregarding the very little rules I had in place of this debate. This rule is “We will be arguing the effectiveness of the border wall”
 
Why We Need a Border Wall
 
1. 80% of women and girls crossing the border are raped according to Amnesty international. With 700,000 people illegally crossing the border each year, this is a huge epidemic that a border fence could end. http://www.debate.org/debates/The-United-States-should-build-and-maintain-a-border-fence/2/ 
I just checked the link and either I take this as plagiarism or I take this as an unsubstantial point. Due to Roy Latham not even mentioning rape or how the border wall would prevent that Wylted does not have evidence that a border wall would stop rapes occurring.
One young girl trying to cross into the United States illegally tells her story to “The Atlantic”
Anecdote. Wylted didn’t show how this was a representation of illegal immigrants which is why my anecdote criticism is valid.
I just wish that Donald Trump’s plan to allow more legal immigrants like her while securing the border to prevent this sort of thing had been implemented. Trump’s plan in his own words.
Even if I concede this it isn’t an argument for you so saying this was not useful. I am guessing this is going to continue.
2. Having no border wall makes it easier for terrorists to sneak into the country. 
Supported by:
Page not found. This can be dismissed because without evidence these are only claims which if were contested we wouldn’t have some sort of standard to decide who is more right than another. I can simply say the opposite of Wylted and what are the voters supposed to vote for? Claims? Evidence is required for a point to be supported. A supported point is better than a non-supported point which is a good reason to judge a debate on.
3. Illegal immigration poses a massive public health risk.
Supported by:
This provided source is not reliable.
4.It's not just the diseases coming across the border that is a problem that is hurting our entire medical system. According to the Las Angelas county supervisor Michael Antonovich.
 
"We're running an H.M.O. for illegal immigrants and if we keep it up, we're going to bankrupt the county.".
My claim above explained here. The time I found this given the link you have provided was in 1991. That is 28 years from our current data. This is considered not reliable because of the advancements made during the time. I would consider papers about immigration as in something that still occurs to this day for it to be relevant either in line with present day immigration standards of the US or I think 3 years from our current date. This meets none of the criteria and it is fair to critique the findings based on that standard. It is as simply as things change and in that time a lot has changed.
He is not the only person saying this sort of thing Madeleine Peiner Cosman, Ph.D writing for The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons says
 
“What is unseen is their [illegal aliens’] free medical care that has degraded and closed some of America’s finest emergency medical facilities, and caused hospital bankruptcies: 84 California hospitals are closing their doors.”
Now I am going to say what I said before but with a different context. This data is supported using 2005 data. There is 14 years of difference between the current year. This includes an Obama presidency which enacted Dreamers while also having Trump in office. There has been 3 terms of presidencies while including 3 years of Bush’s presidency. For it to be relevant it would have to be in line with current immigration standards or be recent to our current date. 14 years away is not recent.
" As a result, the costs of medical care for immigrants are staggering. The estimated cost of unreimbursed medical care in 2004 in California was about $1.4 billion per year. In Texas, the estimated cost was about $.85 billion, and in Arizona the comparable estimate was $.4 billion per year." 
Supported by:
Just by reading I see the number 2004. I am repeating myself but there is a reason. These sources are outdated. You can easily find data like this that is more recent and fitting in line with current immigration yet you choose to use a source that speaks about what a state was like 15 years ago. As of yet I have yet to see a single recent source. Maybe you shouldn’t have copied what you said instead realize how old these sources are. A complaint I might have is that you are not critiquing the specific source more so external things about the source. The problem is that the very date of a source is important. If the source is not recent to the current, it ceases to helpful in representing what is occurring in current past. With this in mind an external detail like the timeframe is important.
5. There is a lot of crime coming across the border straining our resources even further while also endangering our security. Human trafficking across the border is making the criminal underworld rich, worldwide human trafficking is a 32 billion dollar a year industry. http://tinyurl.com/ma6gr38
From the source: “November 2, 2006”
It might seem like my counter-argument are weak but I would require an actual relevant argument for my counter-argument to go past the surface level when someone is using sources like this one which is not even in the same decade.
California spends close to a billion dollars housing illegal immigrants most of them from Mexico and Central America. http://tinyurl.com/amhdpz2%20Nation
Link does not work so from my point of view this a point not supported with evidence.
wide the totals are close to 8 billion dollars. http://tinyurl.com/k57fa9q
While this data is not a decade away it is 9 years away. Here is the quote regarding what he was talking about “Our fiscal cost study in 2010, estimated administration of justice costs at the federal level related to criminal aliens at $7.8 billion annually. The comparable cost to state and local governments was $8.7 billion.4”
We need a fence to stop the illegal smuggling of drugs as well as other illegal contraband. Products made from endangered species, bootleg CDs and DVDs, fake luxury products, and fake prescription drugs among other things. The Mexican drug cartels like to engage in kidnapping Americans, we should probably try to put a wall between us and them to make it harder. 
My point about drugs clearly shows while using relevant data (2018) that drugs are smuggled using legal ports of entries. Wylted failed to mention what Trump would do to the legal ports of entry instead it is as I seemed. I think he is using a previous argument like what he stated earlier but didn’t realize I addressed those points.
There are a ton of illegal guns crossing the border. Until we secure the border any gun laws we make a very likely to be completely ineffective. http://tinyurl.com/kkc8gzu
The link doesn’t go something that supports his side instead goes to aol.com/news. Wylted yet again can’t give sufficient evidence to support his claim.
6. It's almost universally agreed on that the Mexican government is extremely corrupt.
Supported by:
Just to make he can’t have the excuse there isn’t more recent data. Here is more recent data than the link Wylted provided:
https://www.transparency.org/cpi2018

Costs of the Wall
The 2013 budget for the Department of Homeland Security was $60.8 billion, so $1.1 billion would be is a small part of the budget. Costs would be repaid if it it reduced illegal immigration costs by even a half percent."
So basically this entire argument is based on a possibility that illegal immigration will reduced extra costs by half so that the money gained would be higher than the money received. No evidence has been given to make the possibility a probability so all I getting is what if half of immigration was stopped and made the cost of the border wall less than the money gained? Well then that would happen but you have said how likely it is to occur.

Effectiveness of Wall
"According to the most recent quarterly figures published by the Population, Immigration and Borders Authority, 36 people have been caught trying to enter the southern border since January.
It’s an incredible drop after 10,440 were caught in 2012" http://tinyurl.com/kadk4yx
404 not found. Your supporting evidence have shown to be either outdated or not found. I can’t engage with a critique when you don’t even have a substantial point.
A border fence in the Yuma Arizona not even as close to being as secure to the one I propose has dropped immigration by a whopping 94%. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2008/0401/p01s05-usgn.html
When looking the source. It doesn’t support the claim about immigration dropping by 94%. A simply Ctrl+F typing in 9 can find only 1 result and that is about 1994’s Operation Gatekeeper. I can now add you have presented no evidence on the list if I haven’t done so already.

The Law
The United States government has an ethical duty to enforce the law. If we are going to have borders and border laws we need to enforce them. Building a border wall is an effective and humane way to do that. If the country does not make laws it should pass them in a Democratic way, not subvert the law by having intentionally weak border security.Unjust laws do not belong on the books, but border laws are just for the reasons mentioned. If we don't want borders than we should vote to merge with Mexico, but I don't think many people would support that.
You didn’t explain anything. You said the US government had an ethical duty but didn’t say why. You didn’t say why border wall is humane while also being an effective way of enforcing them. Have not defined what you call unjust laws then you speak about a position that is not important to the debate as in no borders. So basically these are a bunch of claims not supported with evidence or at the very least explained.
It is just unacceptable for that to occur. It makes no sense to have all this security at airports, when terrorists can pick any portion of the 43% of the unguarded border to just stroll right through. http://cnsnews.com/commentary/terence-p-jeffrey/border-walls-would-humanely-enforce-just-law
You have a link to an opinion piece which is not evidence. This also fails to mention a single occurrence of a terrorist passing through 43% of unguarded border walls. If Wylted does decide to talk about it in the later Round it is unfair because I only had 1 Round to work with and I gave Wylted plenty of characters to clarify and clearly state his position yet I failed to see why I even had a 30k character limit when he doesn’t use it to thoroughly state his position.

My Rebuttals of Wylted’s rebuttals
Trump has said that he would definitely be willing to use some natural barriers as my opponent’s own citations shows.
This is political talk. Trump has yet to state when he will do it and how. Which can clearly be seen by Wylted not even providing relevant information that Trump neglects to mention like when will the wall be completed? How will it be done? If I am not quoting what Wylted chances are it is not even attempting to fufil the burden of proof he has.
My opponent claims that Trump has never made any arguments that show what benefits a border wall has
I said:
“Trump has failed to deliver evidence to provide what the border wall can help so since he hasn't it can be said that it would be impractical.”
See the difference between what I said from what you paraphrased. I consider that a unintentional straw-man if not a straw-man. Due to the foundation of this part being wrong everything else can be dismissed because of it.
It is still damaging to the country and to the immigrants themselves as you can see from my above arguments. 5.4 million is a staggering number and though the number is not exclusively from people crossing the border illegally, it still shows we need to take border security very seriously.
If you wanted a debate without evidence so basically about it theoretically you should have asked but you didn’t. You have shown you use evidence but here you didn’t. He didn’t even contest my evidence he simply conceded that. That is more than I can say for Wylted’s sources.
since drugs can get into the country illegally through other means that we should just give up on having secure borders
My argument:
“Secondly drugs are smuggled in using legal ports of entry. This is sourced by the National Drug Threat Assessment”
So basically he misrepresented what I said in order to have a point. I never mentioned once about drugs entering through illegal ports. I mentioned the more important reason yet instead of attacking the most important reason you decide to concede and move on to try to state how the less important are more important. Yet again not providing evidence but this time for drugs entering the US through illegal ports. It sure would have helped supporting your idea that illegal ports matter more than you think I think it does.

ECONOMICS
I gave my opponent’s economic arguments their own section because it is his only arguments that come close to being what is referred to in the voting guides I showed earlier in the round
This is under the assumption that I am abiding by your rules even though I created this debate? No I am not abiding by your rules because you didn’t ask and I created this debate so I am the one in charge of you know instigating what this debate would entail.
I’m just going to completely mitigate this point right now by pointing out that we can just allow more legal immigrants into the United States
I can simply mitigate your point by saying we should give illegal immigrants a better path to citizenship. That if I accept this as a critique of my argument. My argument states:
“This would of course mean immigrants are required so that argument falls flat as well.”
Which means both illegal and legal immigrants can fill those roles and I also dislike how he completely misses the point of the economical part of my arguments. It was supposed to be addressing the supposed drawbacks of taking away jobs from Americans yet you think my point is stating I am for illegal immigration due to the amount of jobs available. No I am for immigration due to the amounts of jobs needing to be filled.
Everything else is based on that foundation that I have clearly shown to be false so it can be dismissed.

Conclusion
If it wasn’t clear already I have yet to find a substantial argument for the border wall. The problem was with either that his sources were out-of-date, didn’t represent what he was saying, couldn’t be found (which means he didn’t even check the sources he used) and was an opinion not evidence for his claims be substantial. That is not even mentioning his way of simply denying my rules of the debate. Do I need to make it clear that the contender cannot simply change the rules on a whim? Sure he could have criticized the way I had this debate set out but have yet to see anything worth rebutting instead I am simply given someone trying to oppose the instigator even though he accepted the debate on my terms not on the terms he listed after accepting. He also tried to change the way this debate was. Instead of making this about the effectiveness of the border wall it was about his theoretical border wall.
All in all this wasn’t fruitful whatsoever and I hope the voters see that.


Wylted's avatar
Wylted
Pro
#4
Trumps Plan
“Trump hasn’t even decided on the wall yet you are deciding for him”


Actually I already argued that Trump was keeping his options open, when I stated the following;

“Trump’s plan for a border wall seems to just be a “whatever works” approach. The amount of plans that would work under that type of attitude is monumental, but for the purposes of this debate, I will discuss one plan in particular I think would work. Almost any plan I could think of would fall under a type of plan Trump would accept”


My opponent never disputed that Trump was keeping his options open, which is a plan in and of itself. My opponent was more than welcome to make arguments that this plan definitely would not be one of the option’s Trump would consider, but he failed to do so. He dropped the argument I made that Trump would consider this plan as an option. Trump whether in business or in politics has used emergent strategy as opposed to the more popular form of strategy known as grand strategy. 

Emergent strategy is a strategy used in more chaotic environments to make sure you are always using all the available information and behaving more fluidly, while Grand strategy would be more of an overall purpose and theme attached to your actions. Some studies have shown emergent strategy tends to get better results, but whether emergent or grand strategy is superior is not the purpose of this debate.

The point is that even my opponent has agreed that Trump has not made his plans clear to the public, he seemed to drop the argument that Trump was keeping his options open. The judges should credit those arguments as dropped and accept those points I made as true.

On a side note, this is sad my opponent lacks so much faith in his ability that he felt the need to attempt these unfair shenanigans against an 0-14 opponent on his debate. If he really set it up to argue that Trump does not have a clearly detailed plan, he could have set up that debate by using that as the resolution. The truth is, it wasn’t brought up until after the debate started, because he was attempting to get an easy win as opposed to debating with honor. Sadly even when he attempts to cheat, he is still so outmatched it easily fails.

Here is a related statement my opponent made in his conclusion;

“ Instead of making this about the effectiveness of the border wall it was about his theoretical border wall.”

Actually it is about the effectiveness of Trump’s plan to build a border wall. In the debate description border wall is defined as follows;

“Border Wall: Proposed plan by Trump for a wall between the US and Mexico.”

Plans are by their very nature theoretical. We don’t know what happens when plans are applied to reality, but we can analyze data like what was discussed in this debate and have a reasonable conclusion as to what is best to do.

Summary; My opponent has stated in his definition of border wall that Trump in fact has a plan. He has not given any evidence that the details I provided are not in complete accordance with what Trump would do. Even if my plan slightly differs from Trumps a lot of arguments apply generically to any wall built on the border.

Framework

The voting guidelines I recommended for judges are clearly not rules. These are arguments within the debate itself about the correct way to judge in order to meet my opponent’s criteria mentioned in the debate summary;

“The person who makes the best arguments without sufficient rebuttals will win”

My argument about how to achieve the goal my opponent made for the judges is to weigh impacts. My opponent has merely and incorrectly stated this is an attempt to add rules. The argument about how the judges should judge the debate is dropped and any judges with good ethics will decide the winner based on the criteria I laid out.

Impact Analysis

When judging the debate it is often useful to write down all of the impacts from both sides of a debate. I urge the judges when they are analyzing the debate to write down every impact that my opponent has made for making the policy decision of not making a wall. (after my rebuttals and his counter rebuttals are analyzed obviously). Also write down all the impacts I have brought up that would occur from building a wall (after analyzing rebuttals, and counter rebuttals or lack of). 

Old Data/broken data

I do apologize for any broken links I had. I did copy and paste portions of that from an old debate since much of it was applicable to this debate. The links were not broken when I originally posted them. However we have the original date I looked up those links and where I found them. My opponent saw that earlier debate and still had the information he needed to hunt down and check my citations. Granted the links are not in MLA format, but even when checking things in MLA format you will find broken links because researchers can not be expected to keep up website maintenance from when they did look up the material. If he disputed any of the data in the facts I gave, he should have come up with alternate data to shed some doubt on them. If he had a statistic I disagreed with, and a source was hard for me to personally verify, I would give him the benefit of the doubt but shed some doubt on the stats by showing some things that contradict them. Any argument which he ignored and tried to wave away by saying “broken link” as if that wins him an argument should be counted as dropped.

Similarly my opponent mocks some of the data as old. They come from “old” sources. My opponent never mentioned what makes a citation old. Should we disregard research 5 years old? 10 years old? What is the point it becomes irrelevant? 

It is not enough to merely dismiss some statistics because of when they were gathered. My opponent needs to show more up to date stats that contradict the ones given, or explain why those stats are no longer valid. If a stat refers to a specific phenomenon and he thinks the stat is no longer relevant he should explain why merely stating it is old is not good enough. 

If my opponent dismissed stats merely because they were old without giving any valid reason why those statistics are now unreliable should be counted as dropped.

Merely saying things have changed, is not good enough. Things change daily but he would still accept statistics gathered yesterday I assume, so he needs to explain what changes now make those statistics unreliable.

Answering some rebuttals

Rapeapalooza

On the 80% rape statistic I brought up my opponent says the following;

“I just checked the link and either I take this as plagiarism or I take this as an unsubstantial point. Due to Roy Latham not even mentioning rape or how the border wall would prevent that Wylted does not have evidence that a border wall would stop rapes occurring.”

That citation was in the wrong spot, but if you read my statement I credited amnesty international with making the claim, so even with the incorrect link it still had a relevant citation and all my opponent had to do was go to the amnesty international site to find it. Here is a direct link to amnesty which was the top google result and a huffington article post citing the statistic. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/central-america-migrants-rape_n_5806972?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAK1liwcHiQkcM2zf-2qijCFSKhhA_OcA2VA0xmCntIciBxVY8YQG1fdIvB8aXY2wDMV8kPpFyVo0fAEyxv1WjToQdA39-FnsHFB6LKklIIDeT64DBWJ8DRKpmglsErpQcdLopah1-HkeABGwuIFCoPKGA-avTrFXvBz1k0W8M6ne


https://www.amnesty.org/en/press-releases/2010/04/widespread-abuse-against-migrants-mexican-e28098human-rights-crisise28099/

Like I said I cited amnesty international despite putting the incorrect link up and the information is easy enough to get as both of these articles are in the top 5 google results. 

Oddly enough my opponent acts confused about how a border wall that discourages vulnerable people from crossing illegally would stop those vulnerable people from getting raped. I’m not even sure if he is just trolling at this point or not, but I will spell it out for you.

If vulnerable people know it is pointless to attempt to cross the border illegally, they will no longer be exploited for attempting to cross the border illegally, because they will no longer attempt to cross the border illegally. When you couple this with Trump’s plan to increase legal immigration, it makes no sense for most people to attempt it to start with anyway. 

This next point I should not even respond to, but I will. I give an anecdote for rhetorical value in my previous argument, and than my opponent says it is anecdotal evidence and should be dismissed. To his statement it is anecdotal, no shit buddy. I used it to elaborate on an argument so it would resonate more. Anecdotes can be useful for rhetorical effect but it is not something judges consciously use to judge a debate, so it was pointless for you to bring up or criticize.

Terrorists at the border

My opponent says

“Page not found. This can be dismissed because without evidence these are only claims which if were contested we wouldn’t have some sort of standard to decide who is more right than another. I can simply say the opposite of Wylted and what are the voters supposed to vote for? Claims? Evidence is required for a point to be supported. A supported point is better than a non-supported point which is a good reason to judge a debate on.”

My opponent puts 2 links together and claims they do not work. All he had to do was press the sppace bar between each link, and they work fine. Here is the first link http://dcgazette.com/2016/border-secure-cartels-manage-cut-hole-fence/


Here is the second link

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/dec/30/pakistanis-terrorist-connections-nabbed-us-border/

Both articles are up and the links when you space them apart work fine. It was a minor formatting error that was easily fixed. Here is how I originally posted them;
Having no border wall makes it easier for terrorists to sneak into the country. In a one month period of time 18 people from Afghanistan, 79 people from Pakistan and 619 people from China were caught at the border. It is a myth that only Mexicans are crossing illegaly into the United Stateson the Southern border. In September of 2015 two men with definite ties to terrorism crossed into the Southern border. That is just one of many exaples, and doesn't count all the ones not caught. http://dcgazette.com/2016/border-secure-cartels-manage-cut-hole-fence/%20http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/dec/30/pakistanis-terrorist-connections-nabbed-us-border/?page=all”

This was clearly 2 different links mashed together and my points stand and he dropped my argument. 

Public Health Risk

I pulled some points from the article I cited on a public health risk. The article if you follow the link was from 2009. http://www.fairus.org/issue/illegal-immigration-and-public-health

The following is my entire argument;

"disease of the Third World, is readily evident along the U.S.-Mexico border and that dysentery is several times the U.S. rate". 

Nearly 60% of all new cases of TB have been diagnosed in foreign born persons. Most of the other 40% probably came from exposure of it from foreign born persons. The Pork tapeworm which thrives in Mexico and Latin America is being seen a lot in border towns and 

"its eggs can cause[.] Cysts that form around the larvae usually lodge in the brain and destroy tissue, causing hallucinations, speech and vision problems, severe headaches, strokes, epileptic seizures, and in rare cases death."”

The article cites several studies most from this century, but my opponent honed in on one citation from 1991. The first quote I use is from the 1991 quotation cited. The 60% statistic on TB is from a 2009 article from the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. The statistics about tapeworms and the quote are in reference to a 1992 statistic, but it is very much still a fact that tapeworms thrive in Mexico and Latin America and my opponent has not shown how that fact has changed or how these health risks have suddenly and magically disappeared. 

Even if you dismiss the 1992 tapeworm argument, why did my opponent ignore what I brought up about TB from 2009?

My opponent says this from the healthcare portions of my arguments;

“Just by reading I see the number 2004. I am repeating myself but there is a reason. These sources are outdated. You can easily find data like this that is more recent and fitting in line with current immigration yet you choose to use a source that speaks about what a state was like 15 years ago.”

If more recent stats can easily be found, why did my opponent not point them out. He claims they are easy to find, but fails to do so, if he pulled them up and showed my stats were painting the wrong picture, it might be debate over for me. I suspect that he either couldn’t find them or that if he did find them the statistics did not agree with his position.

The truth is that illegal immigration happen both now and in 2004 and not much has changed about our system or illegal immigration so the stats are still relevant. He has not pointed out a single thing that would make these statistics wrong or prove they are painting the wrong picture of what is occurring now. Every year we take in more illegal immigrants than we get rid of, so there is every reason to think the impacts shown here are worse than ever

Crime

I claim that human trafficking across the border is 32 billion dollar a year industry supported by the link I provided which works fine. https://tinyurl.com/ma6gr38

My opponent responds by saying the source is from 2006 and therefore irrelevant. This is absurd, does he think a 32 billion dollar industry just disappeared over night? There is absolutely no reason to think that human trafficking across the border magically came to a stop and he has given us no reason to believe such an extraordinary thing either. He says the following;

“From the source: “November 2, 2006” 
“It might seem like my counter-argument are weak”

Your arguments seem weak because they are. If I were in your shoes, I would not struggle to come up with responses but would in fact offer real rebuttals rather than bitching about the date specific data was collected, particularly since nothing of note has changed that would make the data that much different if it was collected today.

I go on to explain illegal guns are crossing the border that a wall could stop. My opponent responds by claiming that drugs are coming through legal ports of entry. Granted a wall would not stop the smuggling that comes through legal ports of entry, and I never claimed it did, but I feel as if my opponent is claiming that illegally smuggled drugs come exclusively from legal ports of entry. However his sources say claim that the majority of drugs seized are between legal ports of entry. This is where he gets the statistics that most drugs come in through legal ports of entry.

If true that drugs are more frequently smuggled through legal entry ways is to be believed than we still have a shitload smuggled across non legal points of entry. However it is silly to think most drugs are smuggled through legal points of entry based on the fact that more people are caught smuggling them out in those locations. Obviously more people will be caught smuggling drugs in areas where armed men search every vehicle coming into the area than in areas completely unguarded.

Government corruption

My opponent drops my point about building a wall can stop government corruption and instead tries to say may claims of corruption are unsubstantiated based on the following statement;

“Just to make he can’t have the excuse there isn’t more recent data. Here is more recent data than the link Wylted provided:
https://www.transparency.org/cpi2018 “

Apparently this link is supposed to prove that more recent data suggests Mexico has cleaned up their act and is no longer corrupt. If not than I guess it proves my point that older data can also be reliable unless we have a reason to disbelieve it. However when we look at his chart that ranks countries on corruption number 1 being least corrupt, number 180 being most corrupt, it turns out that Mexico is still corrupt and ranks at 138. Way to prove my point Omar.

Costs of The Wall

I explained how money used by the department of Homeland security can perhaps be directed from spying on American citizens or something and be redirected towards paying for a border wall. My opponent doesn’t dispute that budgets do not even have to be increased to maintain the wall. He takes issue with some other facts I bring up that I have already shown in other arguments to be most likely true. Which is the fact illegal crossings will drop dramatically when there is a physical barrier preventing them.

Effectiveness of Wall

I shared a link to support my argument that illegal immigration has dropped by 97% at the Yuma border. My opponent disputes the exact percentage but does not address that the citation uses, confirms that border crossings drop significantly. My estimate was just that, but it seems correct according to everything I seen and the evidence I presented certainly supports a dramatic reduction in illegal immigration in that area. It is too late for me to explain how I came up with that estimate, so I won’t now. 

The Law

Omar says 

“You didn’t explain anything. You said the US government had an ethical duty but didn’t say why. You didn’t say why border wall is humane while also being an effective way of enforcing them. Have not defined what you call unjust laws then you speak about a position that is not important to the debate as in no borders. So basically these are a bunch of claims not supported with evidence or at the very least explained.”

It is just common sense that the law should be enforced. There is no reason to create laws if we merely ignore them, when arguing against normative ethics, my opponent should state a reason for why he thinks the status quo belief system is wrong. 

I did state why the border wall would be humane by pointing out the rapes that could be avoided by building one, by providing a plan so immigrants are no longer so easily exploited by predatory employers, by fixing the health crisis. I explained why the wall would be effective, by pointing out that it had dramatically reduced illegal immigration in Yuma. The estimate of 97% was my own, but the reduction in illegal immigration the article supports is true.

Conclusion

My opponent is unable to address my counter rebuttals, so in fairness I will ignore his mostly. My opponent has not offered a counter plan to fixing the problems building a wall while simultaneously increasing legal immigration will fix until he brought up an easier path to citizenship which is a new argument which should be ignored. Even if it is accepted there is no reason to think the plan is superior to mine and Trump’s. 

When analyzing this debate my opponent stated in the description we have an equal burden of proof, yet he gave almost no positive arguments for how society would benefit by not building a wall. His case consists almost entirely of rebuttals that at best mitigate my points, but does nothing to further his case. 

My opponent has attempted to define the resolution in an abusive way after he realized he could not win, this is a cheap tactic and almost tantamount to a concession. He wouldn’t have tried to interpret the resolution in an abusive and quite frankly wrong way if he weren’t sure he was going to lose.

Given the description says this debate is a split BOP. Given that my opponent has no positive impacts for refraining from building a wall, given that he can only mitigate (at best) my points, than this is a clear victory for me and the judges should vote in my favor without hesitation.