Instigator / Pro
11
1596
rating
42
debates
63.1%
won
Topic
#383

Illegal Immigration

Status
Finished

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

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
3
6
Better sources
4
4
Better legibility
2
2
Better conduct
2
0

After 2 votes and with 1 point ahead, the winner is...

nmvarco
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
5
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
11,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
12
1536
rating
19
debates
55.26%
won
Description

In this debate, we will be arguing on whether or not the majority of illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay within the US. I'll be Pro. My Opponent will be Con. Here are the rules:

1: A forfeit is an automatic loss, unless there is an apology for the forfeit in the comments or in the debate.
2: The BoP is on Con because he is the one wanting to make something illegal.
3: I will waive the 1st round and Con will waive the last round.

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

Arguments:

Con cites sources that show illegal immigration don’t commit crimes at a higher rate. Pro cites sources that show the reverse. Pro continues the argument, by providing more detail, which con mostly simply dismisses and instead of talking about the statistics draws the conversation off topic into discussions that it’s unfair that the US should have to punish them at all.

Both sides could have done much better, as they appeared to be talking across each other and not dealing with the others contention, but this one goes to pro due to his pushing of this point in the subsequent rounds which were left unrefuted by con.

In terms of jobs, pro argument that they create jobs as well as taken them helps reduce the inferred harm, but I felt cons argument that the government supports them was not refuted, in my view in the economic harms both sides needed to produce evidence and data to show the economic impact. Pro did help cast a little doubt on the taking jobs front with his sources on baby boomers stating on, but I view con having done better than pro in this exchange.

In terms of education and English speaking: asside from the issues noted above, it seems pro is arguing that on this front there is a lack of harm, rather than a net benefit. As such, I don’t feel that this clearly fits into the contention.

Peo raises the issue of an aging population - that the major benefit of immigration is to balance economic impacts of aging population demographics. Pro doesn’t separate legal and illegal immigration here - which would have made it easy for con to refute - but con mostly just dismissed this.

Throughout I felt that the debate deteriorated leading into the final round, there was challenging of sources, and talk about illegal immigration being bad because it’s illegal. Both sides may have done better here focusing on the contention itself, and tying to show or mitigate the harm - to show immigration is bad and to show that reasons presented why it is bad are untrue respectively.

The final few rounds strayed from this and made it difficult to really follow the harms being proposed.

In the end, I’m in a tough spot here:

I feel on balance pro made individually more logical points and was better reasoned. But I have to weigh the net benefits as proposed and refuted - as this is the contention.

In this vein - I feel con failed to show harm of criminal behaviour and murder, but only just. This is a failure to establish so effectively reduces the impact shown to 0.

I feel con establishes a net direct economic harm fairly well with specific sourced harm.

I feel pro establishes a net benefit of immigration as a whole with discussion of population demographics.

I have to weight these two, con clearly didn’t refute the demographics, and in my view pro clearly did not refute economic harm. Both claims were supported and specific, but as they are so close: I am not comfortable awarding the arguments either way as it would be within the margin of error of my own bias.

Conduct to pro for cons forfeits.

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

Conduct; Pro.
Con's opening argument was some kind of silly attempt to pull an indirect kritik based on something his opponent said in the comments. Then he forfeited the last two rounds. I feel like I have to slap a conduct point on this for those issues.

Spelling & Grammar; Tie.
Not perfect on either side, and both sets of arguments have some readability issues, but roughly equal.

Sources; Tie.
Pro accuses Con of using biased sources. Con counters that the sources used by Pro are also biased and that attacking a source merely because you don't like the political stance of the author is an ad hominem fallacy. Con eventually admits that since both sides used biased sources they are "even" on this point.

Arguments; Con.
The major arguments in this debate revolved around crime, jobs, taxes and the sources used by each side. Pro said a few other things about "invasion policies" and other vaguely suspicious-sounding things which were never hashed out much, so I can't really comment on any of those. Pro also had a strange hypothetical public policy suggestion...

Pro's opening argument on jobs was to admit that illegal immigrants take jobs, but claim that they also create jobs. Pro also claims that illegal immigrants are better at the jobs they take, but no citation was ever provided to support this claim. Later in the debate Pro also adds a claim that we need immigrants to replace our "aging population." Con rebuts these points both by pointing out the already conceded point that illegal immigrants take jobs from lawful citizens, as well as citing a source showing that our "aging population" (baby boomers) are refusing to retire from the workforce, which is holding back the job opportunities of younger generations. Pro never offered any meaningful counter to this, other than to quibble over the sources which Con used. Since Pro eventually concedes that he also used biased sources and that both parties were "even" in that regard, Pro effectively dropped this point in favor of Con. So Con wins on the jobs issue.

Pro claimed that illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes than legal citizens and cited two sources to support the claim. Con countered by citing a detailed report which debunked the claim that illegal immigrants are law abiding by providing an extremely extensive list of the most common crimes committed by illegal immigrants. Con also cited a report showing that illegal immigrants raise the overall crime rate and a memorial to people that have died as the result of illegal immigrants. As with the jobs issue, the only major rebuttal offered by Pro was to quibble about Con's sources being biased, but Pro eventually concedes this due to his own sources also being biased and thus "even" for both parties. Con's points appear to disprove the claims made by Pro and since Pro drops the issue, Con wins on the crime point.

Pro argued that illegal immigrants pay taxes. Con countered by citing multiple sources showing that illegal immigrants pay less in taxes than the cost of the public services they use, meaning that they still represent a net loss to the government by consuming more than they produce. Pro countered with a very silly rhetorical rebuttal that some citizens also don't pay enough in taxes, so maybe they should be deported too? Con simply rebuts this by pointing out that legal citizens can't be deported because they have a legal right to be here. Con wins this point easily.

Then we have Pro's interesting public policy hypothesis... Pro has this scheme that illegal immigrants can be forcefully relocated to the South-west U.S. where they will be forced to perform manual labor to pay for "assimilation" classes. Pro never explains how this policy would work, how "assimilation" classes would help or how he would tackle the difficult political process needed to enact such a policy. Pro also admits that if illegal immigrants don't like it, they should leave the country, which really seems counter-intuitive to his overall argument. Con points out that this policy doesn't exist, likely won't ever exist and could be easily overturned in court even if it were enacted. Since it isn't really obvious what this argument was meant to accomplish and Con offered a lot of good points against it, I consider it effectively negated.

In one of the final rounds where any arguments were offered, Pro also raised the issue of deporting immigrants resulting in families being separated. Con never offered a response to this, but Pro rather effectively undermined his own argument by admitting that it was an appeal to emotion.

Although Con flubs the first round and the last few rounds, his solid material and volume of sources make a strong case in the middle portion of the debate. Pro's only real counter argument on most of the issues was to complain about biased sources, a problem his own sources shared and which he eventually admitted was "even." Overall this is a solid victory for Con.