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POLITICS DISADVANTAGE –
PRESEASON
***1NC SHELL ...........................................................................................................................................................2
Politics 1NC ...........................................................................................................................................................3
***UNIQUENESS EXTENSIONS ...............................................................................................................................7
UQ – CIR Will Pass ...............................................................................................................................................8
***LINKS & EXTENSIONS.......................................................................................................................................10
Link – Cuba Unpopular........................................................................................................................................11
Link – Cuba Tourism Unpopular ..........................................................................................................................15
Link – Cuba Lobby Opposes ...............................................................................................................................16
Link – Mexico Unpopular .....................................................................................................................................18
Link – Specific Mexico Kills CIR ..........................................................................................................................21
Link – Venezuela Unpopular ...............................................................................................................................23
Generic Engagement Unpopular .........................................................................................................................27
Link – Obama Will Use Political Capital ..............................................................................................................29
They Say: Winners Win .......................................................................................................................................30
***POLITICAL CAPITAL KEY ..................................................................................................................................32
I/L – Political Capital Key.....................................................................................................................................33
***IMPACT MODULES ............................................................................................................................................35
Impact Module – Disease ....................................................................................................................................36
Impact Module – Hegemony ...............................................................................................................................40
Impact Module – Terrorism .................................................................................................................................42
***AFFIRMATIVE ANSWERS ..................................................................................................................................44
**UNIQUENESS ......................................................................................................................................................45
Non-Unique – Won’t Pass ...................................................................................................................................46
Link Turn – Plan Popular .....................................................................................................................................47
Political Capital Isn’t Real ....................................................................................................................................48
Political Capital Isn’t Key .....................................................................................................................................50
Winners Win ........................................................................................................................................................52
They Say: CIR Solves Economy .........................................................................................................................55
They Say: Econ Decline  War .........................................................................................................................58
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***1NC SHELL
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Politics 1NC
CIR will pass now—Bipartisan support
WSJ 5/16 (Bipartisan House Group Reaches Broad Immigration Deal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323398204578487851658723968.html)
WASHINGTON—After
months of negotiations, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers has reached a
broad agreement on a bill to overhaul the immigration system, one of its Republican members said Thursday. "We
have an agreement in principle," Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R., Fla.) told reporters. "The big hurdles are taken care of." A
Democratic aide confirmed that a deal had been reached. But Democratic lawmakers in the group were largely quiet on the agreement, and one
suggested that some provisions remained unsettled. Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, writing on Twitter, called it an "important breakthrough''
and added: "Some details still to be worked out, but very pleased things are moving forward." The eight
House lawmakers revealed few details of their plan, other than to say it would differ from the bipartisan proposal unveiled in the Senate last month. "There
are going to be differences with the Senate bill," Mr. Diaz-Balart said. The House legislation still must be put
into final form, and lawmakers plan to pore over it line-by-line before filing the bill, he said. The announced
deal was reached in a meeting late Thursday with six of the eight House lawmakers present and one listening over the phone. The group's eighth member, GOP
Rep. Sam Johnson of Texas, was in the hospital recovering from hernia surgery, but his chief of staff was present, Mr. Diaz- Balart said. He didn't specify how
widespread support was for different provisions of the bill. Earlier Thursday, lawmakers
had said they were still hammering out
differences over whether the 11 million illegal immigrants currently in the country should be eligible
to receive taxpayer subsidies toward the cost of health insurance and how many guest workers
should be admitted into the country on work visas. Rep. John Carter (R., Texas) told reporters before the deal was announced
that Republicans planned to introduce legislation the first week of June even if their four Democratic negotiating partners didn't to sign off on the final product.
Mr. Carter said House lawmakers were likely to diverge from the Senate on the number of work visas to be created for construction workers, though he wouldn't
specify how many such visas the House bill would allow. The Senate bill would designate 15,000 visas a year for foreign construction workers. Mr. Carter said
that number wouldn't even meet the demand for construction workers in his home state of Texas. The deal's announcement came after House Speaker John
Boehner (R., Ohio) publicly worried Thursday about the group's progress. Mr. Boehner told reporters that he was "concerned" that the bipartisan group had
been unable to reach an agreement. For weeks, Mr. Boehner has praised the House lawmakers' efforts, making it clear that he saw their work as a plausible way
to initiate House action on an immigration-overhaul bill. Lawmakers working on the deal also included Democratic Reps. Xavier Becerra and Zoe Lofgren, both
of California, John Yarmuth of Kentucky and Republican Rep. Raul Labrador of Idaho. Separately, senior members
of the House Judiciary
Committee have said they intend to begin consideration of individual pieces of legislation aimed at
fixing parts of immigration law. That approach has been seen by many in the House and outside activists as a possible fall-back option in the
event that the House group of lawmakers were unable to reach an agreement.
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Economic engagement is unpopular
Litwak 7 (Robert, vice president for programs and director of International Security Studies at the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars, Regime Change: U.S. Strategy Through the Prism of 9/11, p. 118-9)
Engagement strategies face significant hurdles both in the United States and in the target states. A shift from
the default strategy of comprehensive containment and isolation will likely generate domestic
political opposition in the United States. For example, with respect to North Korea, conservative critics in Congress and elsewhere
castigated the Agreed Framework as a sellout; in the case of Cuba, the Cuban emigre community (wooed by presidential candidates every four years) has
For U.S. policy-makers, any inducement, even if reciprocated by the target
state, can be cast as an act of appeasement. As discussed in Chapter 1, this domestic constraint has been a major factor promoting
strategic inflexibility. Differences over the appropriateness of incentive-based strategies in dealing with
rogue states reflect contending assessments of the prospects for social change in the target state .
effectively vetoed change in U.S. policy.
The underlying assumption of those advocating the continuation of hard containment towards these states is that a squeeze strategy may precipitate regime
change. In contrast, proponents of engagement, whether conditional or unconditional, operate from the assumption that such a strategy can positively affect the
domestic evolution of the target state (Iran) or is necessitated by a national security imperative (North Korea). Those advocating a shift in U.S. policy toward
Cuba, for example, argue that more than four decades of hard containment have not brought down Fidel Castro, instead providing him a ready scapegoat for his
regime's dismal economic performance.
Political capital is key to passage
Huffington Post 13 ("Obama Gears Up For Immigration Reform Push In Second Term,"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/15/obama-immigration-reform_n_2463388.html)
Obama has repeatedly said he will push hard for immigration reform in his second term, and
administration officials have said that other contentious legislative initiatives -- including gun control
and the debt ceiling -- won't be allowed to get in the way. At least at first glance, he seems to have politics on
his side. GOP lawmakers are entering -- or, in some cases, re-entering -- the immigration debate in the wake of disastrous results for their party's
presidential nominee with Latino voters, who support reform by large measures. Based on those new political realities, "it would be a suicidal impulse for
Republicans in Congress to continue to block [reform]," David Axelrod, a longtime adviser to the president, told The Huffington Post.¶ Now there's the question of
how Obama gets there. While confrontation might work with Republicans on other issues -- the debt ceiling, for example -- the consensus is that the GOP is
serious enough about reform that the president can, and must, play the role of broker and statesman to get a deal.¶ It
starts with a lesson from his first term. Republicans have demanded that the border be secured first, before other elements of immigration reform. Yet the
administration has been by many measures the strictest ever on immigration enforcement, and devotes massive sums to policing the borders. The White House
has met many of the desired metrics for border security, although there is always more to be done, but Republicans are still calling for more before they will
consider reform. Enforcing the border, but not sufficiently touting its record of doing so, the White House has learned, won't be enough to win over Republicans.¶
In a briefing with The Huffington Post, a senior administration official said the White House believes it has met enforcement goals and must now move to a
comprehensive solution. The administration is highly skeptical of claims from Republicans that immigration reform can or should be done in a piecemeal fashion.
Going down that road, the White House worries, could result in passage of the less politically complicated pieces, such as an enforcement mechanism and highskilled worker visas, while leaving out more contentious items such as a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.¶ "Enforcement is certainly part of
the picture," the official said. "But if you go back and look at the 2006 and 2007 bills, if you go back and look at John McCain's 10-point 'This is what I've got to
get done before I'm prepared to talk about immigration,' and then you look at what we're actually doing, it's like 'check, check, check.' We're there. The border is
as secure as it's been in a generation or two, so it's really time."¶ One key in the second term, advocates say, will be convincing skeptics such as Republican
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas that the Obama administration held up its end of the bargain by proving a commitment to enforcement. The
White House
also needs to convince GOP lawmakers that there's support from their constituents for immigration
reform, which could be aided by conservative evangelical leaders and members of the business community who are pushing for a bill.¶ Immigrant advocates
want more targeted deportations that focus on criminals, while opponents of comprehensive immigration reform say there's too little enforcement and not enough
assurances that reform wouldn't be followed by another wave of unauthorized immigration. The Obama administration has made some progress on both fronts,
but some advocates worry that the president hasn't done enough to emphasize it. The latest deportation figures were released in the ultimate Friday news dump:
mid-afternoon Friday on Dec. 21, a prime travel time four days before Christmas.¶ Last week, the enforcement-is-working argument was bolstered by a report
from the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, which found that the government is pouring more money into its immigration agencies than the other federal lawenforcement efforts combined. There are some clear metrics to point to on the border in particular, and Doris Meissner, an author of the report and a former
commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, said she hopes putting out more information can add to the immigration debate.¶ "I've been
surprised, frankly, that the administration hasn't done more to lay out its record," she said, adding the administration has kept many of its metrics under wraps.¶
There are already lawmakers working on a broad agreement. Eight senators, coined the gang of eight, are working on a bipartisan immigration bill. It's still in its
early stages, but nonmembers of the "gang," such as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) are also talking about reform.¶ It's still unclear what exact role the president will
play, but sources say he does plan to lead on the issue. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the top Democrat
on the House immigration
subcommittee, said the White House seems sensitive to the fact that Republicans and Democrats
need to work out the issue in Congress -- no one is expecting a fiscal cliff-style arrangement jammed by leadership -- while
keeping the president heavily involved
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CIR is key to high-skill immigration
LA Times 12 (Other countries eagerly await U.S. immigration reform, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/11/us-immigration-reform-eagerlyawaited-by-source-countries.html)
"Comprehensive
immigration reform will see expansion of skilled labor visas," predicted B. Lindsay
Lowell, director of policy studies for the Institute for the Study of International Migration at
Georgetown University. A former research chief for the congressionally appointed Commission on Immigration Reform, Lowell said he expects
to see at least a fivefold increase in the number of highly skilled labor visas that would provide "a significant shot in
the arm for India and China."¶ There is widespread consensus among economists and academics that skilled
migration fosters new trade and business relationships between countries and enhances links to
the global economy, Lowell said.
High skill immigration is key to the economy—Experts agree
Krudy 13 (Edward, “Analysis: Immigration reform could boost U.S. economic growth”,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/29/us-usa-economyimmigration-idUSBRE90S06R20130129, CMR)
***Note – cites: Alex Nowrasteh, immigration specialist at the CATO institute, AND Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, a specialist
in immigration policy at the University of California, Los Angeles.
(Reuters) - The
sluggish U.S. economy could get a lift if President Barack Obama and a bipartisan group of
senators succeed in what could be the biggest overhaul of the nation's immigration system since the 1980s.¶ Relaxed immigration
rules could encourage entrepreneurship, increase demand for housing, raise tax revenues and help
reduce the budget deficit, economists said.¶ By helping more immigrants enter the country legally and allowing many illegal immigrants to remain,
the United States could help offset a slowing birth rate and put itself in a stronger demographic position
than aging Europe, Japan and China.¶ "Numerous industries in the United States can't find the workers they need, right now
even in a bad economy, to fill their orders and expand their production as the market demands," said Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration
specialist at the libertarian Cato Institute.¶ The emerging consensus among economists is that immigration
provides a net benefit. It increases demand and productivity, helps drive innovation and lowers prices, although there is little agreement on the size
of the impact on economic growth.¶ President Barack Obama plans to launch his second-term push for a U.S. immigration overhaul during a visit to Nevada on
Tuesday and will make it a high priority to win congressional approval of a reform package this year, the White House said.¶ The
chances of major
reforms gained momentum on Monday when a bipartisan group of senators agreed on a framework that
could eventually give 11 million illegal immigrants a chance to become American citizens.¶ Their
proposals would also include means to keep and attract workers with backgrounds in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. This would be aimed
both at foreign students attending American universities where they are earning advanced degrees and high-tech workers abroad.¶ An estimated 40 percent of
scientists in the United States are immigrants and studies show immigrants
are twice as likely to start businesses, said
Nowrasteh.¶ Boosting legal migration and legalizing existing workers could add $1.5 trillion to the U.S.
economy over the next 10 years, estimates Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, a specialist in immigration policy at the
University of California, Los Angeles. That's an annual increase of 0.8 percentage points to the economic growth rate, currently stuck at
about 2 percent.
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Economic collapse results in flashpoint wars that cause extinction
Royal 10 Jedediah, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of Defense, 2010, Economic
Integration, Economic Signaling and the Problem of Economic Crises, in Economics of War and Peace: Economic,
Legal and Political Perspectives, ed. Goldsmith and Brauer, p. 213-215
Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict.
Political science literature has contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defence behaviour of
interdependent stales. Research in this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions follow. First, on the
systemic level. Pollins (20081 advances Modclski and Thompson's (1996) work on leadership cycle theory, finding that rhythms
in the global
economy are associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often bloody
transition from one pre-eminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as economic
crises could usher in a redistribution of relative power (see also Gilpin. 19SJ) that leads to uncertainty about
power balances, increasing the risk of miscalculation (Fcaron. 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain
redistribution of power could lead to a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may
seek to challenge a declining power (Werner. 1999). Separately. Pollins (1996) also shows that global economic cycles combined with
parallel leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small powers, although he suggests that the causes and connections
between global economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown. Second, on a dyadic level. Copeland's (1996. 2000) theory of trade expectations
suggests that 'future
expectation of trade' is a significant variable in understanding economic conditions
and security behaviour of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain pacific
benefits from trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations. However, if the
expectations of future trade decline, particularly for difficult to replace items such as energy
resources, the likelihood for conflict increases, as states will be inclined to use force to gain access
to those resources. Crises could potentially be the trigger for decreased trade expectations either
on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states.4 Third, others have considered
the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Mom berg and Hess (2002) find a strong correlation between internal conflict
and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic downturn. They write. The
linkage, between internal and external
conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing. Economic conflict lends to spawn
internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour. Moreover, the presence of a recession tends to amplify the extent to which
international and external conflicts self-reinforce each other (Hlomhen? & Hess. 2(102. p. X9> Economic decline has also been linked with an increase in the
likelihood of terrorism (Blombcrg. Hess. & Wee ra pan a, 2004). which has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions. Furthermore,
crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government. "Diversionary theory" suggests that,
when facing unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting governments have increased
incentives to fabricate external military conflicts to create a 'rally around the flag' effect. Wang (1996),
DcRoucn (1995), and Blombcrg. Hess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force arc at least indirecti)
correlated. Gelpi (1997). Miller (1999). and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that Ihe tendency towards diversionary tactics arc greater for democratic
states than autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from office due to lack of domestic support.
DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence showing that periods of weak economic performance in the United States, and thus weak Presidential popularity, are
statistically linked lo an increase in the use of force. In summary, rcccni economic
scholarship positively correlates economic
integration with an increase in the frequency of economic crises, whereas political science
scholarship links economic decline with external conflict al systemic, dyadic and national levels.' This implied connection
between integration, crises and armed conflict has not featured prominently in the economic-security debate and deserves more attention.
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UQ – CIR Will Pass
CIR Will pass—Even the GOP knows the consequences
The Stockton Record 7/6 (http://www.appeal-democrat.com/articles/house-126260-members-republicans.html)
The real reason is that the
epiphany that swept the Senate after President Barack Obama captured 71 percent of the
Latino vote and 73 percent of the Asian-American vote in November 2012 can be ignored by House members. That's
because most Republican members (as do Democratic members) hail from districts considered "safe." That is, drawn to make sure the advantage goes to the
party doing the drawing, almost always the party in power.¶ But with
the nation's Latino and Asian populations growing, the
long-term trend is not favorable for those opposed to comprehensive immigration reform.¶
"Republicans realize the implications of the future of the Republican Party in America if we don't get
this issue behind us," Sen. John McCain said Sunday after the
CIR will pass—Boehner’s commitment and increased GOP support
Politico 6/12 (House leaders play small ball on immigration reform http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/houseimmigration-reform-92695.html)
House majority leadership essentially pronounced immigration reform DOA.¶ Speaker John Boehner
has told colleagues and staff that
he wants to pass some sort of immigration bill through the House before the August recess . Just 25
legislative days remain until the House wraps up its work for the summer.¶ GOP leadership appears to be seriously considering
an option to take up a Senate-passed bill and put it through committee —if it passes the upper chamber with
strong support. That would, at least, give Republicans the opportunity to produce a parallel product that
matches up better with the Senate’s framework — although House committees would most likely tear it to shreds.
CIR will pass—Pressure on the house and Boehner
The Hill 6/18 (Reid: House will face pressure to approve immigration reform
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/306283-reid-house-will-be-under-pressure-to-approve-immigration-reform)
Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and the House will face
enormous pressure to pass comprehensive immigration reform.¶ Reid said he’s told the four Democrats
in the bipartisan group that drafted the Senate bill to ignore Boehner’s statements and to not worry
about the House.¶ His counsel is that they should just focus on the Senate, and the House will take care of itself. “I have talked to my four Democrats
[on] the Gang of Eight, and I have told them, ‘Concentrate on the Senate. Don’t, at this stage, worry about what’s going to happen in the House,’” Reid told
reporters Tuesday.¶ “And I say that no
matter what statements the Speaker may have given. No matter what he
said, there’s going to be significant national pressure on the House to do something on
immigration.”
CIR will pass—The GOP knows the risk
Red Alert Politics 6/30 (Sen. Schumer: Senate immigration bill will pass the House
http://redalertpolitics.com/2013/06/30/sen-schumer-senate-immigration-bill-will-pass-the-house/)
“No, not at all,” Schumer responded. “In fact, I believe that by
the end of this year, the House will pass the Senate bill. I know
Senator explained that he
respected Boehner and understood the risk in the primaries that many Republicans would face if
they voted for the immigration bill. But he also noted that Republicans will be a “minority party” for
an entire generation if they didn’t help pass immigration reform.¶ “We’re not going to let this issue go away,” he said.
that’s not what they think now, and they’ll say, ‘Oh no, that’s not what’s gonna happen.’ But I think it will.”¶ The
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CIR will pass—GOP commitment
NVO News 7/6 (Immigration reform: between hope and despair http://nvonews.com/2013/07/06/immigrationreform-news-2013-the-bill-between-hope-and-despair/)
But there
are many people among both the Republicans and Democrats who believe that some form
of immigration reform will pass through the US Congress, sooner or later, because as Jonathan Bernstein, a political scientist
pointed out in his blog, “Speaker Boehner and most Republicans really want a bill to pass”. The current pace
suggests it would be sooner rather than later, though House Republicans warned that they would
do the bill in their own time and would not follow the timeline set by the Gang of Eight, or President
Obama, who has urged that the House pass the bill before the August recess. “We are going to work our will like
we have been doing for the past weeks,” Republican House member Trey Gowdy said in an interview to Fox news.
Clinton agrees
Chaffee 6/14 (13, Joshua, http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/06/14/bill-clinton-on-immigration-55-or-60chance-it-will-pass/)
Former President Bill Clinton
is “bullish” that Congress will pass comprehensive immigration reform. Speaking
expressed optimism about the legislation but suggested Speaker John Boehner would
need to break the so-called Hastert rule to do it.¶ The former president believes there will be enough votes to pass an
immigration reform bill, but asks, “Will [Speaker Boehner] allow a bill to be brought to the floor of the House that does not have the support of a
to Alex Wagner on NOW Friday, Clinton
majority of his own caucus, but clearly would get a big bipartisan majority in the House?”
They’ll force a vote
Weber 6/28 (Peter How the House might pass immigration reform http://theweek.com/article/index/246289/howthe-house-might-pass-immigration-reform)
Despite Boehner's invocation of the "Hastert Rule" — the legislation won't pass without a majority of Republicans — it's pretty clear that "the
only way to
pass a bill is with Democrats supplying most of thed votes," says Jonathan Chait at New York. That would seem to doom the
bill, but "there's a way around this problem: The discharge petition."¶ What is that? Well, it's certainly "the most exotic option," says the Post's
Matthews. Here's how it works: "If 218 House members sign what's called a 'discharge petition, '" he explains, "they
can bring a bill to the floor without a committee vote or the cooperation of the House leadership."
That means all 201 Democrats and 17 Republicans would have to sign on, but if they do, the House
can approve the Senate bill "without Boehner breaking the Hastert rule and without the support of
most Republicans."
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***LINKS & EXTENSIONS
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Link – Cuba Unpopular
Cuba engagement unpopular
Think Progress 13 (“How the GOP Response to Beyoncé’s Cuba Trip Highlights Broken Policy”
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/04/09/1838661/rubio-beyonce-cuba/)
Experts at CAP and the Cato Institute alike agree that the policy has been an abject failure at achieving the goals the United States set out. On taking office,
President Obama
sought to roll-back some of the harsher restrictions the previous administration placed on Cuba,
including removing a ban on remittances from Cubans in the U.S. to their families back home and reducing travel
restrictions on Americans with immediate family in Cuba. Every step towards reforming Cuba policy, however, has
been met with kicking and screaming, mostly from the GOP with some Democrats joining in. While the human rights
violations the Cuban regime continues to perpetrate are most certainly a concern, campaign funding may play a strong role in the
perpetuation of U.S. policies. A 2009 report from Public Campaign highlighted the nearly $11 million the U.S.-Cuba
Democracy Political Action Committee, along with a “network of hard-line Cuban American
donors,” spent on political campaigns since 2004. In the report, those candidates who received funding displayed a shift in voting
patterns on Cuba policy in the aftermath of the gift
Cuba engagement unpopular – aid is a battle
PolitiFact 11 (The U.S. gives foreign aid to Cuba and Venezuela, even though those countries are our enemies
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/mar/23/ted-poe/ted-poe-decries-us-aid-venezuela-cuba/)
In a House floor speech on Feb. 9, 2011,
Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, took aim at American aid to foreign countries. Poe has introduced a bill to require
it’s time to reconsider our foreign aid
separate votes on aiding specific countries, thus ending the practice of bundling foreign aid into a single bill. "Maybe
that we send to
countries throughout the world," Poe said in the floor speech, which has attracted attention in conservative circles on the Internet. "There are about 192 foreign countries in the world, … and we give foreign aid to
Poe proceeded to name some examples of countries where many Americans might be
uncomfortable sending taxpayer money, including Egypt, Pakistan, Russia and China. But two of the nation’s in Poe’s speech caught our eye -- Venezuela
and Cuba. Critics of Venezuela’s leader, Hugo Chavez, call him a dictator. Meanwhile, Cuba has been a communist country for decades , led by Fidel
Castro and now his brother Raul. In its widely followed rankings, the group Freedom House rates Venezuela toward the bottom of the nations
it classifies as "partly free," while Cuba sits at the lower end of its "not free" scale. And both nations have strained relations with the United States. So Poe suggested these
as two examples of what’s wrong with U.S. foreign aid. "We give money to Venezuela. Why do we give money to Chavez and Venezuela? He hates the United
States. He defies our president, makes fun of our nation. We don’t need to give him any foreign aid. We give $20 million to Cuba. Why do we give money to Cuba?
Americans can’t even go to Cuba. It’s off-limits. It’s a communist country. But we’re dumping
money over there." We looked at budget documents for foreign aid and talked to experts in the field, and here’s what we found. Poe is correct that U.S. foreign aid flows into both countries. In
over 150 of them."
fiscal year 2010, the Venezuela account showed $6 million, while the Cuba account showed $20 million. For fiscal year 2012, the administration has requested a little less for Venezuela -- $5 million -- and the same
$20 million amount for Cuba. To give a sense of context, the 2010 funds allocated for Venezuela amounted to less than 1/100th of 1 percent of the total U.S. foreign-aid budget, and the figure for Cuba was about
4/100 of 1 percent of the U.S. foreign aid budget. The percentage of the entire federal budget is even more minuscule. Still, even if the amount is small, taxpayer money is taxpayer money, so Poe has a point.
However, Poe also said in plain language that "we give money to Chavez." And while he didn’t say it in as explicit a fashion, Poe implied that the U.S. sends aid to the Cuban regime. This is where it gets more
complicated. The funding for both nations comes from the Economic Support Fund, which, according to the State Department, "supports U.S. foreign policy objectives by providing economic assistance to allies and
countries in transition to democracy. Programs funded through this account promote stability and U.S. security interests in strategic regions of the world." Let’s take Cuba first. A spokesman for the U.S. Agency for
no U.S. aid goes to the Cuban government. In an explanation of its proposed budget, the administration writes that "Cuba
, U.S. assistance for
Cuba aims to empower Cuban civil society to advocate for greater democratic freedoms and
respect for human dignity." The $20 million designated for Cuba "focuses on strengthening
independent Cuban civil society organizations, including associations and labor groups. … To advance the
cause of human rights in Cuba, U.S. assistance provides humanitarian assistance to political prisoners and their
families … The United States supports nascent pro-democracy groups, the use of technology, and new information-sharing opportunities." A 2006 review by the Government Accountability Office noted that
International Development confirmed that
is the only non-democratically elected government in the Western Hemisphere and one of the most politically repressed countries in the world. In view of these challenges
the aid is such a threat to the regime that it has to be kept under tight wraps on the island. "Given the Cuban government’s repressive policies and opposition to U.S. democracy assistance, grantees employed a
the money being sent to Cuba is designed to foster democracy in what is
range of discreet delivery methods," GAO reported. In other words,
currently an undemocratic country -- not to support the government. Poe’s failure to note that distinction as he attacks aid to "Cuba" strikes us as misleading.
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The plan drains capital – Cuban engagement is a fight
Birns and Mills ‘13
(Larry, Director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Frederick B., COHA Senior Research Fellow, 01/30, “Best
Time for U.S.– Cuba Rapprochement Is Now,” http://www.coha.org/best-time-for-u-s-cuba-rapprochement-is-now/)
Despite the basic intransigence of US policy towards Cuba, in recent years, important changes have been introduced
by Havana: state control over the economy has been diminished; most travel restrictions affecting both Americans
and Cubans on the island have been lifted; and the “group of 75” Cuban dissidents detained in 2003 have been
freed. Washington has all but ignored these positive changes by Havana, but when it comes to interacting with old
foes such as those of Myanmar, North Korea, and Somalia, somehow constructive dialogue is the order of the day.
One reason for this inconsistency is the continued opposition by the anti-Castro lobby to a change of course by
Washington. The anti-Castro lobby and their allies in the US Congress argue that the reforms coming out of Havana
are too little too late and that political repression continues unabated. They continue to see the embargo as a tool for
coercing either more dramatic reforms or regime change. It is true that the reformist tendency in Cuba does not
include a qualitative move from a one party system to political pluralism. Lamentably, Cuba reportedly continues to
use temporary detentions and the occasional jailing of non-violent dissidents to limit the parameters of political
debate and total freedom of association. The authors agree that no non-violent Cuban dissident should be
intimidated, detained or jailed. But continuing to maliciously turn the screws on Havana has never provided an
incentive for more democracy in any sense of the word nor has it created a political opening into which Cuba, with
confidence, could enter. The easing of tensions between Washington and Havana is more likely to contribute to the
evolution of a more democratic form of socialism on the island, the early stages of which we may presently be
witnessing. In any case the precise form of such change inevitably should and will be decided in Cuba, not in
Washington or Miami. To further moves towards rapprochement with Cuba, the U.S. State Department should
remove the country from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. It is an invention to depict Havana as a state sponsor
of terrorism, a charge only levied by the State Department under pressure from Hill hardliners. As researcher Kevin
Edmunds, quite properly points out: “This position is highly problematic, as the United States has actively engaged in
over 50 years of economic and covert destabilization in Cuba, going so far as blindly protecting wanted terrorists
such as Luis Posada Carilles and Orlando Bosch, both former CIA agents accused of dozens of terrorist attacks in
Cuba and the United States ” (Nov. 15, 2012, Kevin Edmonds blog). It was precisely the propensity of some antiCastro extremists to plan terrorist attacks against Cuba that urgently motivated the infiltration of such groups by the
Cuban five as well as the close monitoring of these organizations by the FBI. Another gesture of good will would be
for the White House to grant clemency to the Cuban five: Gerardo Hernandez, Ramón Labañino, Fernando
Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero and René Gonzalez. They are Cuban nationals who were convicted in a Miami court in
2001 and subsequently sentenced to terms ranging from 15 years to double life, mostly on charges of conspiracy to
commit espionage. Despite requests for a change of venue out of Miami, which at first was granted and later denied,
the trial took place in a politically charged Miami atmosphere that arguably tainted the proceedings and compromised
justice. Supporters maintain that the Cuban five had infiltrated extremist anti-Castro organizations in order to prevent
terrorist attacks against Cuba and did not pose any security threat to the United States. It would be an important
humanitarian gesture to let them go home. Perhaps such a gesture might facilitate reciprocity on the part of Cuban
authorities when it comes to American engineer Alan Gross who is presently being detained in a Cuban jail. There
would probably be a political price to pay by the Obama administration for taking steps towards reconciliation with
Havana, but if Obama’s election to a second term means that there is to be a progressive dividend, surely such a
dividend ought to include a change in US policy towards the island. Mirabile dictu, the Administration can build on the
small steps it has already taken. Since 2009, Washington has lifted some of the restrictions on travel between the US
and Cuba and now allows Cuban Americans to send remittances to relatives on the island. The Cuba Reconciliation
Act (HR 214) introduced by Representative Jose Serrano (D-NY) on January 4, 2013, and sitting in a number of
congressional committees, would repeal the harsh terms of the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 and the Helms-Burton
Act of 1996, both of which toughened the embargo during the special period in Cuba. The Cuba Reconciliation Act,
however, is unlikely to get much traction, especially with ultra-hardliner Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL),
chairing the House Foreign Relations Committee, and her counterpart, Robert Menendez (D-NJ), who is about to
lead the Senate Foreign Relations Body. Some of the anti-Castro Cuban American community would likely view any
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of the three measures advocated here as a capitulation to the Castro brothers. But as we have argued, a prodemocracy and humanist position is not in any way undermined, but might in fact be advanced by détente. An end to
the embargo has been long overdue, and the judgment of history may very well be that it ought never to have been
started.
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Reforming Cuba policy will be a fight
Think Progress 4-9
[“How the GOP Response to Beyoncé’s Cuba Trip Highlights Broken Policy”, April 9th, 2013,
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/04/09/1838661/rubio-beyonce-cuba/]
Experts at CAP and the Cato Institute alike agree that the policy has been an abject failure at achieving the goals the
United States set out. On taking office, President Obama sought to roll-back some of the harsher restrictions the
previous administration placed on Cuba, including removing a ban on remittances from Cubans in the U.S. to their
families back home and reducing travel restrictions on Americans with immediate family in Cuba. Every step towards
reforming Cuba policy, however, has been met with kicking and screaming, mostly from the GOP with some
Democrats joining in. While the human rights violations the Cuban regime continues to perpetrate are most certainly
a concern, campaign funding may play a strong role in the perpetuation of U.S. policies. A 2009 report from Public
Campaign highlighted the nearly $11 million the U.S.-Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee, along with a
“network of hard-line Cuban American donors,” spent on political campaigns since 2004. In the report, those
candidates who received funding displayed a shift in voting patterns on Cuba policy in the aftermath of the gift
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Link – Cuba Tourism Unpopular
Allowing US travelers financial service and insurance access requires massive PC – Obama
pushes plan and gets blame regardless
Aho, 13
Matthew Aho, Inter-American Dialogue's Latin America Advisor, Cuba Study Group, 1/23, http://www.cubastudygroup.org/index.cfm/ouropinions?ContentRecord_id=c20ad778-24cd-46df-9fb2-3ebc664ed58d&ContentType_id=15d70174-0c41-47c6-9bd5cc875718b6c3&Group_id=4c543850-0014-4d3c-8f87-0cbbda2e1dc7
What Does Obama's Second Term Hold for U.S.-Cuba Relations? John Kerry is expected to be confirmed soon as
U.S. secretary of state. During his tenure in the Senate, Kerry has criticized U.S. programs aimed at fostering
democracy in Cuba and proposed opening up U.S. travel to the island. Will having Kerry as secretary of state affect
U.S. relations with Cuba? Will President Barack Obama's first-term moves to ease some travel and remittance
restrictions for Cuban-Americans lead to additional relaxed restrictions in his second term? To what extent would
looser restrictions toward Cuba present business opportunities for U.S. firms? Which industries could benefit? While
John Kerry's views on U.S.–Cuba relations have favored engagement over isolation, ultimate authority rests with a
White House that has proceeded cautiously on Cuba during President Obama's first term. Aside from easing some
travel restrictions, there have been only two emergent themes on Cuba policy: support for private-sector efforts to
increase the flow of information to the Cuban people; and support for private economic activity on the island. Cuba
policy changes still require expenditures of political capital disproportionate to the island's strategic and economic
importance. Barring game-changing developments—such as release of USAID subcontractor Alan Gross—executive
action during Obama's second term will likely focus on furthering goals laid out during his first. Here, however, John
Kerry's leadership could prove vital and create new opportunities for U.S. business. In 2009 the White House
directed the Treasury and Commerce departments—in consultation with State—to authorize U.S.
telecommunications firms to negotiate international roaming agreements with Cuba. This would allow U.S. travelers
to use their cell phones on the island and presumably increase communications flows with Cuba. It would also
generate some new revenue for U.S. firms. Three years later, there's still no agreement—partly because federal
agencies haven't clearly communicated how they will handle industry proposals to establish one. This issue may
seem insignificant, but in the context of U.S.–Cuba relations it would be an historic first. Kerry could sit down with
industry to revisit this issue to help finally get an agreement signed. Kerry could also encourage the president to
make other common-sense, executive-branch changes within the scope of current policy, such as allowing U.S.
travelers to access basic financial services and purchase insurance products to ensure their safety and wellbeing
while in Cuba; or remove regulatory impediments to U.S. farm exports.
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Link – Cuba Lobby Opposes
Drains capital - Cuba lobby most powerful, controls debate on everything cuba and ensures
majority congressional opposition
Stieglitz, 11
Matthew, Law Clerk at Vladeck, Waldman, Elias & Engelhard, P.C, Judicial Intern at United States District Court,
Masters @ Cornell University, http://www.thepresidency.org/storage/Fellows2011/Stieglitz-_Final_Paper.pdf
This collaboration represented positive dialogue with Cuba, yet it did nothing to improve relations with Cuba.
Subsequent to the Balsero crisis, the US Congress acted to enforce stricter standards towards the island in a
landmark legislation that would effectively relegate the presidency to the backburner in relation to Cuba. Driven in
part by CANF and the lobbying efforts of the exile community, the Cuban Liberty & Solidarity Act was passed in 1996
(also known as the Helms-Burton Act) further complicating relations with Cuba (Bardach, 2002). Essentially, the
legislation cedes greater authority to the US Congress in ending the trade embargo, making a potential pro-embargo
majority in Congress the powerbrokers on everything US-Cuba related. Simply stated, the Cuban Liberty &
Democratic Solidarity Act disempowers the presidency in relation to Cuba. While the legislation calls for a variety of
different elements, it has two key components in relation to the presidency: the embargo can only be repealed by
Congressional vote, and it cannot be repealed until a democratic government is elected in Cuba that includes neither
Fidel nor Raul Castro. This clearly hinders normalization because it effectively mitigates any transition efforts or
progressive policies that the Castro brothers sponsor. Unless the legislation is repealed or amended, any progressive
efforts or dialogue from the Cuban government will be irrelevant so long as the Castro brothers continue to lead the
government. It also constrains the US presidency, as President Obama—or any future president— cannot simply end
the embargo with Cuba. Instead, presidents must defer to the US Congress, which will make progressive policy with
Cuba difficult. This again exemplifies the strength and importance of the Cuban-American lobby in policy discussions
with Cuba. Not only did their efforts result in Congressional legislation that effectively ceded control of US relations
with Cuba to Congress, but they also imposed the agenda of the electorate on American foreign policy. Subsequent
to this legislation passing, the Cuban-American lobby would again work to have its voice heard when a young boy,
Elian González, was found floating in American waters, one of three survivors of an ill-fated voyage that claimed the
lives of eleven people, including his mother. Under the Wet Foot, Dry Foot policy, Elian González could not be
granted asylum in the United States because he was found in water. While his family in the US was more than willing
to take the boy in, his status as a minor complicated matters with his father remaining in Cuba. This placed the
Clinton Administration in the middle of a highly contested debate that the Cuban-American electorate immediately
moved to shape (Bardach, 2002). The González case called into questions components of family law, immigration
law, refugee policy, and politics, and presented the Cuban-American electorate its greatest opportunity to embarrass
the Castro government. For President Clinton, it presented a crisis that necessitated caution, and would ultimately
entail a moral debate that stirred immense media coverage of the Cuba dilemma itself. González's mother drowned
in late 1999 while traveling with her son to the United States, and while the INS originally placed him with paternal
family in Miami, his father objected to González remaining in the United States (Bardach, 2002). What ensued was a
media nightmare, with national media outlets descending on Miami to interview the boy. Local politicians became
involved, with the case eventually being deliberated in court where the family’s asylum petition was dismissed and
González was ordered to return to his father. President Clinton almost exclusively deferred to Attorney General Janet
Reno during the proceedings, who ultimately ordered the return of González to his father prior to the court decision.
González’s return to Cuba coincided with the beginning of yet another decade in which the Cuban trade embargo
would continue, and to date is the last controversial event of US-Cuba policy during the Castro regime (Bardach,
2002). Reflecting upon the Castro reign during the 20th century, two themes emerge: the prominence of the CubanAmerican community, and the actions of US presidents towards Cuba. The clout of the Cuban-American lobby
cannot be understated, as the 2000 presidential election showed us. President George W. Bush secured his victory
as president in no small part due to the Cuban-American vote, which he and Al Gore campaign vigorously for. As
such, the Gore and Bush campaigns remained relatively silent on the Elian González case, leaving the matter to the
courts so as not to risk any backlash from the Cuban-American community. After his victory, President Bush
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tightened restrictions on Cuba much like his Republican predecessors. He further restricted travel to the island for
CubanAmericans, reduced the amount of remittances that could be sent to the island, placed Cuba on terror-watch
lists after 9/11, and maintained that Cuba was a strategic threat to national security (Erlich, 2009). Further, cultural
and academic exchanges were suspended, and many Cuban and American artists found themselves unable to attain
visas to travel between Cuba and the United States to share the rich culture of both nations. By the time President
Bush left office, the only Americans legally allowed to enter Cuba were journalists, family members (who could only
go once every three years), and those visiting the island for religious reasons.
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Link – Mexico Unpopular
Mexico engagement unpopular empirically
Seelke 13 (Clare 1/23 Mexico and the 112th Congress” http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL32724.pdf)
There have been ongoing concerns about the human rights records of Mexico’s federal, state, and
municipal police. For the past several years, State Department’s human rights reports covering Mexico have cited credible reports of
police involvement in extrajudicial killings, kidnappings for ransom, and torture.83 While abuses are most common at the municipal
and state level, where corruption and police collaboration with criminal groups often occurs, federal forces—including the Federal Police—have also committed serious abuses.
Individuals are most vulnerable to police abuses after they have been arbitrarily detained and before they are transferred to the custody of prosecutors, or while they are being held in preventive detention. Some 43% of Mexican inmates are reportedly in pretrial detention.84 The Calderón government sought to combat police corruption and human rights abuses through increased vetting of federal forces; the creation of a national police registry to prevent corrupt police from being re-hired; the use of internal
affairs units; and the provision of human rights training. In 2012, the government also announced new protocols on the use of force and how detentions are to be handled that were designed to prevent abuses. A January 2009 public security law codified
efforts to reform municipal police
forces have lagged behind. There has also been increasing concern that the Mexican military, which is less accountable to civilian authorities than the police, is committing more human rights abuses since it is has
vetting requirements and professional standards for state police to be met by 2013, but progress toward meeting those standards has been uneven. With a few exceptions,
been tasked with carrying out public security functions. A November 2011 Human Rights Watch (HRW) report maintains that cases of torture, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings have increased significantly in states where federal authorities
have been deployed to fight organized crime.85 According to Mexico’s Human Rights Commission (CNDH), the number of complaints of human rights abuses by Mexico’s National Defense Secretariat (SEDENA) increased from 182 in 2006 to a peak of 1800
in 2009 before falling slightly to 1,695 in 2011. The Trans-Border Institute has found that the number of abuses by SEDENA forces that have been investigated and documented by CNDH has also declined since 2008-2009, particularly in areas where largescale deployments have been scaled back.86 In contrast, complaints of abuses against the Secretariat of the Navy (SEMAR) reported to CNDH increased by 150% from 2010 to 2011 as its forces became more heavily involved in anti-DTO efforts.87 While
troubling, only a small percentage of those allegations have resulted in the CNDH issuing recommendations for corrective action to SEDENA or SEMAR, which those agencies say they have largely accepted and acted upon.88 A June 2011 constitutional
amendment gave CNDH the authority to force entities that refuse to respond to its recommendations to appear before the Mexican Congress. In addition to expressing concerns about current human rights abuses, Mexican and international human rights
groups have criticized the Mexican government for failing to hold military and police officials
accountable for past abuses.89 In addition to taking steps to reform the police and judiciary, the Calderón government took some steps to comply with rulings by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR)
that cases of military abuses against civilians should be tried in civilian courts. While a few dozen cases90 were transferred to civilian jurisdiction and former President Calderón asked SEDENA and SEMAR to work with the Attorney General to accelerate
transfers, most cases were still processed in the military justice system.91 Military prosecutors have opened thousands of investigations into allegations of human rights abuses as a result of complaints filed with the CNDH, with few having resulted in
convictions.92 A reform of Article 57 of the military justice code was submitted by then-President Calderón in October 2010 mandating that at least certain human rights violations be investigated and prosecuted in civilian courts. A more comprehensive
proposal that required that all cases of alleged military human rights violations be transferred to the civilian justice system was approved by the Mexican Senate’s Justice Commission in April 2012; however, the bill was subsequently blocked from coming to a
vote. In September 2012, another proposal to reform Article 57 was presented in the Mexican Senate, but not enacted. Enacting a reform of Article 57 of the military justice code may become more urgent now for the Peña Nieto Administration now that
Mexico’s Supreme Court is in the process of establishing binding legal precedent for determining jurisdiction in cases involving alleged military human rights violations against civilians. Human rights defenders and journalists have been particularly vulnerable
to abuses by organized crime, sometimes acting in collusion with corrupt government authorities. Recently, several prominent human rights defenders have been harassed, attacked, and even killed, including members of the high-profile Movement for Peace
Increasing violent crimes targeting journalists, combined with high levels of
impunity for the perpetrators of those crimes, have made Mexico the most dangerous country in the
Western Hemisphere for journalists. Crimes against journalists range from harassment, to extortion, to kidnapping and murder. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has documented 58 murders of journalists and at
with Justice and Dignity led by Javier Sicilia.
least 10 cases of journalists disappearing in Mexico since 2000. Threats from organized crime groups have made journalists and editors fearful of covering crime-related stories, and in some areas coverage of the DTOs’ activities have been shut down.93 The
Calderón government and the Mexican Congress took some steps to better protect human rights defenders and journalists, but many human rights organizations have called upon the Peña Nieto Administration to do more. The Calderón government
established a special prosecutor within the Attorney General’s Office to attend to crimes against freedom of expression and created mechanisms to provide increased protection for journalists and human rights defenders. Those mechanisms have yet to be
effectively implemented. The Mexican Congress enacted a law to make crimes against journalists a federal offense and a law to require the federal government to provide protection to journalists and human rights defenders who are “at risk” of being
victimized and to their families. Another law approved by the Congress in 2012, but not promulgated by the Calderón government, would require the state to track victims of organized crime and provide assistance to victims and their families. Human rights
organizations expressed satisfaction after President Peña Nieto signed that law, commonly referred to as the “victims’ law,” in January 2013, but said that the real test of his government’s commitment to human rights will be in how that and other laws are
implemented. Human Rights Conditions on U.S. Assistance to Mexico In 2008, Congress debated whether human rights conditions should be placed on Mérida assistance beyond the requirements in §620J of the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) of 1961. That
section was re-designated as §620M and amended by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012 (P.L. 112-74). It states that an individual or unit of a foreign country’s security forces is prohibited from receiving assistance if the Secretary of State receives
“credible evidence” that an individual or unit has committed “a gross violation of human rights.” The FY2008 Supplemental Appropriations Act (P.L. 110-252), which provided the first tranche of Mérida funding, had less stringent human rights conditions than
had been proposed earlier, largely due to Mexico’s concerns that some of the conditions would violate its national sovereignty. The conditions required that 15% of INCLE and Foreign Military Financing (FMF) assistance be withheld until the Secretary of State
reports in writing that Mexico is taking action in four human rights areas: 1. improving transparency and accountability of federal police forces; 2. establishing a mechanism for regular consultations among relevant Mexican government authorities, Mexican
human rights organizations, and other relevant Mexican civil society organizations, to make consultations concerning implementation of the Mérida Initiative in accordance with Mexican and international law; 3. ensuring that civilian prosecutors and judicial
authorities are investigating and prosecuting, in accordance with Mexican and international law, members of the federal police and military forces who have been credibly alleged to have committed violations of human rights, and the federal police and military
forces are fully cooperating with the investigations; and 4. enforcing the prohibition, in accordance with Mexican and international law, on the use of testimony obtained through torture or other ill-treatment. Similar human rights conditions were included in
FY2009-FY2011 appropriations measures that funded the Mérida Initiative.95 However, the first two conditions are not included in the 15% withholding requirement in the FY2012 Consolidated Appropriations Act (P.L. 112-74). As previously mentioned,
Congress has yet to pass a final FY2013 appropriations measure. It remains to be seen whether an
omnibus bill would include the conditions on aid to Mexico that are in the Senate Appropriations
Committee’s version of the FY2013 foreign operations ppropriations measure S. 3241 (S.Rept. 112-172). Those conditions would retain the condition
related to torture, as well as require the State Department to report that Mexico has reformed its military justice code and is requiring police and military officials to immediately transfer detainees to civilian judicial authorities. Thus far, the State Department has
submitted three 15% progress reports on Mexico to congressional appropriators (in August 2009, September 2010, and August 2012) that have met the statutory requirements for FY2008-FY2012 Mérida funds that had been on hold to be released.
has twice elected to hold back some funding pending further progress in key areas of
concern. In the September 2010 report, for example, the State Department elected to hold back $26 million in FY2010 supplemental funds as a matter of policy until
further progress was made in the areas of transparency and combating impunity.96 Those funds were not obligated until the fall of
2011. In the August 2012 report, the State Department again decided to hold back all of the FY2012 funding that would have been subject to
the conditions (roughly $18 million) as a matter of policy until it can work with Mexican authorities to determine steps to address key
human rights challenges. Those include: improving the ability of Mexico’s civilian institutions to investigate and prosecute cases of human rights abuses; enhancing enforcement of prohibitions against torture and other
Nevertheless, the State Department
mistreatment; and strengthening protection for human rights defenders.97
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Economic engagement with Mexico is politically divisive
Wilson ‘13
Associate at the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International. Center for Scholars (Christopher E., January,
“A U.S.-Mexico Economic Alliance: Policy Options for a Competitive Region,”
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/new_ideas_us_mexico_relations.pdf)
At a time when Mexico is poised to experience robust economic growth, a manufacturing renaissance is underway in
North America and bilateral trade is booming, the United States and Mexico have an important choice to make: sit
back and reap the moderate and perhaps temporal benefits coming naturally from the evolving global context , or
implement a robust agenda to improve the competitiveness of North America for the long term . Given that job
creation and economic growth in both the United States and Mexico are at stake, t he choice should be simple, but a
limited understanding about the magnitude, nature and depth of the U.S.-Mexico economic relationship among the
public and many policymakers has made serious action to support regional exporters more politically divisive than it
ought to be.
NAFTA proves the link – trade gets linked to a broader fights about jobs
Villarreal and Fergusson ‘13
Specialists in International Trade and Finance (M. Angeles, Ian F., 02/21, “NAFTA at 20: Overview and Trade
Effects,” http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42965.pdf)
NAFTA was controversial when first proposed, mostly because it was the first FTA involving two wealthy, developed
countries and a developing country. The political debate surrounding the agreement was divisive with proponents
arguing that the agreement would help generate thousands of jobs and reduce income disparit y in the region, while
opponents warned that the agreement would cause huge job losses in the United States as companies moved
production to Mexico to lower costs. In reality, NAFTA did not cause the huge job losses feared by the critics or the
large economic gains predicted by supporters. The net overall effect of NAFTA on the U.S. economy appears to have
been relatively modest, primarily because trade with Canada and Mexico account for a small percentage of U.S.
GDP. However, there were worker and firm adjustment costs as the three countries adjusted to more open trade and
investment among their economies.
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Pushing expanded free trade measures with Mexico angers democrats
Perez-Rocha 12
[Manuel Pérez Rocha is an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington D.C, “Don't Expand
NAFTA”, July 26th, 2012, http://www.fpif.org/articles/dont_expand_nafta]
With Canada and Mexico joining the TPP, the agreement is looking more and more like a substitute for the FTAA. So
it is not surprising that opposition to the TPP is growing as quickly as it did against that former attempt to expand the
neoliberal model throughout the Western hemisphere. The intense secrecy of the TPP negotiations is not helping the
Obama administration make its case. In their statement, North American unions “call on our governments to work
with us to include in the TPP provisions to ensure strong worker protections, a healthy environment, safe food and
products, and the ability to regulate financial and other markets to avoid future global economic crises.” But the truth
is that only big business is partaking in consultations, with 600 lobbyists having exclusive passwords to online
versions of the negotiating text. A majority of Democratic representatives (132 out of 191) have expressed that they
are “troubled that important policy decisions are being made without full input from Congress.” They have written to
U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk to urge him and his staff to “engage in broader and deeper consultations with
members of the full range of committees of Congress whose jurisdiction touches on the wide-ranging issues involved,
and to ensure there is ample opportunity for Congress to have input on critical policies that will have broad
ramifications for years to come." In their letter, the representatives also challenge “the lack of transparency of the
treaty negotiation process, and the failure of negotiators to meaningfully consult with states on the far-reaching
impact of trade agreements on state and local laws, even when binding on our states, is of grave concern to us.” U.S.
Senators, for their part, have also sent a letter complaining of the lack of congressional access to the negotiations.
What openness and transparency can we in Canada and Mexico expect when the decision to join the TPP, under
humiliating conditions, was made without any public consultation? NAFTA turns 20 years old in 2014. Instead of
expanding it through the TPP we must learn from NAFTA’s shortcomings, starting with the historic lack of
consultation with unions and producers in the three member countries. It is necessary to correct the imbalances in
NAFTA, which as the North American union statement explains enhanced corporate power at the expense of workers
and the environment. In particular, we need to categorically reject the investor-state dispute settlement process that
has proven so costly, in real terms and with respect to our democratic options in Canada and Mexico. The unions’
statement of solidarity provides a strong foundation for the growing trinational opposition to the TPP in Leesburg,
Virginia, and beyond.
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Link – Specific Mexico Kills CIR
Plan specifically derails immigration reform - Economic engagement initiatives PERCEIVED
as deprioritizing necessary focus on security issues and drug war while kowtowing to
Mexico – perception is key and hardliner target spin control to play on fence sitters largest
fears
Shear, 13
(Michael, NYT White house correspondent, 5/5, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/world/americas/inlatin-america-us-shifts-focus-from-drug-war-to-economy.html?pagewanted=all)
Last week, Mr. Obama returned to capitals in Latin America with a vastly different message. Relationships with
countries racked by drug violence and organized crime should focus more on economic development and less on the
endless battles against drug traffickers and organized crime capos that have left few clear victors. The countries,
Mexico in particular, need to set their own course on security, with the United States playing more of a backing role.
That approach runs the risk of being seen as kowtowing to governments more concerned about their public image
than the underlying problems tarnishing it. Mexico, which is eager to play up its economic growth, has mounted an
aggressive effort to play down its crime problems, going as far as to encourage the news media to avoid certain
slang words in reports. “The problem will not just go away,” said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American
Dialogue. “It needs to be tackled head-on, with a comprehensive strategy that includes but goes beyond stimulating
economic growth and alleviating poverty. “Obama becomes vulnerable to the charge of downplaying the region’s
overriding issue, and the chief obstacle to economic progress,” he added. “It is fine to change the narrative from
security to economics as long as the reality on the ground reflects and fits with the new story line.” Administration
officials insist that Mr. Obama remains cleareyed about the security challenges, but the new emphasis corresponds
with a change in focus by the Mexican government. The new Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto, took office in
December vowing to reduce the violence that exploded under the militarized approach to the drug war adopted by his
predecessor, Felipe Calderón. That effort left about 60,000 Mexicans dead and appears not to have significantly
damaged the drug-trafficking industry. In addition to a focus on reducing violence, which some critics have
interpreted as taking a softer line on the drug gangs, Mr. Peña Nieto has also moved to reduce American
involvement in law enforcement south of the border. With friction and mistrust between American and Mexican law
enforcement agencies growing, Mr. Obama suggested that the United States would no longer seek to dominate the
security agenda. “It is obviously up to the Mexican people to determine their security structures and how it engages
with other nations, including the United States,” he said, standing next to Mr. Peña Nieto on Thursday in Mexico City.
“But the main point I made to the president is that we support the Mexican government’s focus on reducing violence,
and we look forward to continuing our good cooperation in any way that the Mexican government deems
appropriate.” In some ways, conceding leadership of the drug fight to Mexico hews to a guiding principle of Mr.
Obama’s foreign policy, in which American supremacy is played down, at least publicly, in favor of a multilateral
approach. But that philosophy could collide with the concerns of lawmakers in Washington, who have expressed
frustration with what they see as a lack of clarity in Mexico’s security plans. And security analysts say the entrenched
corruption in Mexican law enforcement has long clouded the partnership with their American counterparts. Putting
Mexico in the driver’s seat on security marks a shift in a balance of power that has always tipped to the United States
and, analysts said, will carry political risk as Congress negotiates an immigration bill that is expected to include
provisions for tighter border security. “If there is a perception in the U.S. Congress that security cooperation is
weakening, that could play into the hands of those who oppose immigration reform,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a
counternarcotics expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “Realistically, the border is as tight as could be
and there have been few spillovers of the violence from Mexico into the U.S.,” she added, but perceptions count in
Washington “and can be easily distorted.” “Drugs today are not very important to the U.S. public over all,” she added,
“but they are important to committed drug warriors who are politically powerful.” Representative Michael T. McCaul, a
Texas Republican who is chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, has warned against the danger of drug
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cartels forming alliances with terrorist groups. “While these threats exist, you would be surprised to find that the
administration thinks its work here is done,” he wrote in an opinion article for Roll Call last month, pressing for more
border controls in the bill. The Obama administration has said any evidence of such cooperation is very thin, but even
without terrorist connections, drug gangs pose threats to peace and security. Human rights advocates said they
feared the United States would ease pressure on Mexico to investigate disappearances and other abuses at the
hands of the police and military, who have received substantial American support. The shift in approach “suggests
that the Obama administration either doesn’t object to these abusive practices or is only willing to raise such
concerns when it’s politically convenient,” said José Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch’s Americas
division. Still, administration officials have said there may have been an overemphasis on the bellicose language and
high-profile hunts for cartel leaders while the real problem of lawlessness worsens. American antidrug aid is shifting
more toward training police and shoring up judicial systems that have allowed criminals to kill with impunity in Mexico
and Central America. United States officials said Mr. Obama remains well aware of the region’s problems with
security, even as he is determined that they not overshadow the economic opportunities. It is clear Mr. Obama,
whatever his words four years ago, now believes there has been too much security talk. In a speech to Mexican
students on Friday, Mr. Obama urged people in the two countries to look beyond a one-dimensional focus on what he
called real security concerns, saying it is “time for us to put the old mind-sets aside.” And he repeated the theme later
in the day in Costa Rica, lamenting that when it comes to the United States and Central America, “so much of the
focus ends up being on security.” “We also have to recognize that problems like narco-trafficking arise in part when a
country is vulnerable because of poverty, because of institutions that are not working for the people, because young
people don’t see a brighter future ahead,” Mr. Obama said in a news conference with Laura Chinchilla, the president
of Costa Rica.
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Link – Venezuela Unpopular
Engagement with Venezuela is unpopular
Washington Times 13 (ROS-LEHTINEN: Venezuela after Chavez: What comes next?”,
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/14/venezuela-after-chavez-what-comes-next/)
Last year, it was
reported that the Obama administration was seeking to exchange ambassadors in an
attempt to normalize relations between the countries. The U.S. State Department’s approach was
extremely premature, and it, unfortunately, legitimized Mr. Maduro without even questioning whether the
Venezuelan Constitution was being upheld. The Obama administration continued to send mixed
messages and to undermine the opposition by sending a delegation to attend Chavez’s funeral services last week, alongside enemies
of the United States, such as Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Words matter, but actions matter more, and this decision
not only sends mixed signals to the people of Venezuela, but reiterates the failed policy of attempting to re-establish
diplomatic relations. It is in our best interest if political and economic reforms come to Venezuela, but all signs currently point to the contrary. As
the leader of the Chavista movement, Mr. Maduro could potentially be worse for the Venezuelan
people and for U.S. national security interests. Mr. Maduro still controls all branches of government, stifles free speech and was
indoctrinated with socialist ideology. He has traveled to Tehran and has strong ties with Iran, supports the Assad regime in Syria and has become a lap dog for
Cuba’s Castro brothers.
Congress hates cooperation with Venezuela
Sullivan ‘13
Specialist in Latin American Affairs (Mark P., 01/10, “Venezuela: Issues for Congress,”
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R40938.pdf)
U.S. Policy The United States traditionally has had close relations with Venezuela, a major supplier of foreign oil to
the United States, but there has been significant friction with the Chávez government. For several years, U.S. officials
have expressed concerns about human rights, Venezuela’s military arms purchases (largely from Russia), its
relations with Cuba and Iran, its efforts to export its brand of populism to other Latin American countries, and the use
of Venezuelan territory by Colombian guerrilla and paramilitary forces. Declining Venezuelan cooperation on antidrug
and antiterrorism efforts also has been a U.S. concern. Since 2005, Venezuela has been designated annually (by
President Bush and President Obama) as a country that has failed to adhere to its international anti-drug obligations.
Since 2006, the De partment of State has prohibited the sale of defense articles and services to Venezuela because
of lack of cooperation on antiterrorism efforts.
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GOP hates the plan
Ros-Lehtinen 13
[Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida Republican, is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle
East and North Africa. “ROS-LEHTINEN: Venezuela after Chavez: What comes next?”, March 14th, 2013,
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/14/venezuela-after-chavez-what-comes-next/]
Last year, it was reported that the Obama administration was seeking to exchange ambassadors in an attempt to
normalize relations between the countries. The U.S. State Department’s approach was extremely premature, and it,
unfortunately, legitimized Mr. Maduro without even questioning whether the Venezuelan Constitution was being
upheld. The Obama administration continued to send mixed messages and to undermine the opposition by sending a
delegation to attend Chavez’s funeral services last week, alongside enemies of the United States, such as Iranian
leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Words matter, but actions matter more, and this decision not only sends mixed
signals to the people of Venezuela, but reiterates the failed policy of attempting to re-establish diplomatic relations. It
is in our best interest if political and economic reforms come to Venezuela, but all signs currently point to the
contrary. As the leader of the Chavista movement, Mr. Maduro could potentially be worse for the Venezuelan people
and for U.S. national security interests. Mr. Maduro still controls all branches of government, stifles free speech and
was indoctrinated with socialist ideology. He has traveled to Tehran and has strong ties with Iran, supports the Assad
regime in Syria and has become a lap dog for Cuba’s Castro brothers.
Sparks fierce congressional fight - extremists control Venezuela debate and anything short
of confrontation gets viewed as appeasement
Harper, 10 (liz, Senior Editor @ US Institute for Peace, adjunct fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs,
americasquarterly.org contributing blogger based in Washington DC, 12/21, http://americasquarterly.org/node/2058)
Venezuela’s Formal Rejection of Ambassador-Designate Larry Palmer The long-running debate over how to deal
with the irrational and impulsive strongman, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, has reached feverish pitch this
winter. The latest casualty in this war of words has become U.S. Ambassador Larry Palmer, the Obama
administration's nomination as ambassador to Venezuela. Worse yet, Chávez ultimately got what he wanted out of
this latest battle: his choice of who will not be our next Ambassador in Venezuela. On Monday, Venezuela formally
told the U.S. to not bother sending Larry Palmer as the next ambassador since he would be asked to return the
moment he landed in Caracas. How did this all go down? Like Cuba, any U.S. move regarding Venezuela involves
egos, politics and fortunately, some policy. Naturally, when Palmer went before the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee over the summer, the career diplomat—characterized by some at the U.S. Department of State as "not a
Washington man"—he already faced an uphill slog. Our domestic debate over Venezuela generally falls into two
camps: engagement and confrontation. There are, of course, shades of gray and nuances between the two sides—
though such voices are so often overpowered by the more extreme views. On one side, you have those espousing
"strategic engagement," keeping in line with the Obama administration's stated foreign policy and national security
objectives. In short and broadly speaking, these proponents might argue, with an irrational state, you shouldn't turn
your back. Look where that got us with North Korea, Iran and Syria. Instead you want a seat at the table to start a
dialogue based on mutual respect and to build on areas of mutual interest. You raise concerns discretely and
express disapproval quietly or through third parties. As one person said, engagement should be “subversive,"
because you seek to assert positive influence by being present and through cooperation on areas such as business
development, financial opportunities, or culture and sports. Indeed, Palmer was the right guy to carry out this mission.
But, the engagement policy, as it is practiced with Venezuela, seems more like "appeasement," say people clamoring
for a tougher approach. After all, for years now, we have witnessed a democracy's death by a thousand cuts. This
past week, Hugo Chávez got one of his Christmas wishes with the approval of new decree powers, thereby further
eroding the country's once well-established institutional checks and balances. Chávez threatens more than human
rights and democratic norms; the U.S. has legitimate national security concerns, such as nuclear proliferation,
terrorism and narcotrafficking. Yet, as Chávez runs roughshod over international norms, is the U.S. working to halt
the downward spiral? Those are the broad brush strokes of the debate into which Palmer was tossed.
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Spun as appeasement – triggers intense fight and derails Obama domestic agenda priorities
Dueck, 11
Colin Dueck,professor at the Department of Public and International Affairs, George Mason University, October 1, 2011
policy review » no. 169, http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/94006
Look at how Obama’s strategy of accommodation has played out in relation to four categories of foreign
governments: 1) those essentially hostile to the United States, 2) those who pursue a mixture of strategic rivalry and
cooperation, 3) genuine American allies, and 4) Arab governments of varying allegiance. The first category, of
regimes basically hostile to the United States, includes the governments of Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela,
to name only four of the most notable. Each of these governments has literally defined itself at a fundamental level by
violent opposition to America. To think that a conciliatory tone, a preliminary concession, or a well-intentioned desire
for better relations on the part of a U.S. president by itself will transform that hostility is simply naïve. In the case of
Cuba, for example, the Obama administration began by lifting certain economic sanctions, in the hope of seeing
some reciprocal concessions from the Castro brothers: political liberalization, an easing of anti-American hostility,
anything at all of significance. No such concessions have been made. The case of Iran has already been discussed
— Obama reached out to Tehran with great fanfare in 2009, and has received in effect a slap in the face. Both
Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and North Korea’s Kim Jong Il are likewise just as hostile and provocative toward the
United States today as they were when George W. Bush was America’s president. This is because the fundamental
barrier to friendly U.S. relations with those regimes was never George W. Bush. The fundamental barrier to friendly
relations with these regimes is the fact that they are bitterly hostile to the United States. The kinds of concessions
that Washington would have to offer to win their genuine accommodation would be so sweeping, massive, and
unacceptable, from the point of view of any likely U.S. president that they will not be made — and certainly not by
Barack Obama. Any smaller concessions from Washington, therefore, are simply pocketed by a hostile regime, which
continues along in its basic antipathy toward the United States. So who is supposed to be the target audience here?
The true audience and for that matter the ultimate source of these various conciliatory policy initiatives is essentially a
small, transnational, North Atlantic class of bien pensant opinion who already share Obama’s core policy priorities in
any case. They have rewarded him with their support, as well as with the Nobel Peace Prize. Others internationally
are less impressed. And in the meantime, we may have lost something, in terms of the ability to seriously prepare for
certain looming security challenges. A primary and continuing emphasis on diplomatic engagement after Iran has
repeatedly rebuffed the United States does not help us to prepare for the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran. A
declared commitment to nuclear abolition does nothing to convince other nuclear powers to abandon their own
arsenals, and may even be counterproductive in the sense that it deludes important segments of opinion into
believing that such declarations actually help to keep the peace. Obama has said from the beginning that the
purpose of his more conciliatory foreign policy approach was to bolster American standing in the world, but the
definition of international standing has actually been highly self-referential in the direction of aforementioned
transatlantic liberal opinion. In many cases overseas, from the perspective of other governments, Obama’s wellintentioned conciliatory gestures are read as a sign of weakness, and consequently undermine rather than bolster
American standing. In one way, however, Obama has already achieved much of what he desired with his strategy of
accommodation, and that is to re-orient American national resources and attention away from national security
concerns and toward the expansion of domestic progressive reforms. He appears to sincerely believe that these
liberal domestic initiatives in areas such as health care and finance will also bolster American economic power and
competiveness. Actually they will do no such thing, since heavy-handed and constantly changing federal regulations
tend to undermine investor confidence as well as long-term U.S. economic growth. But either way, Obama’s vision of
a more expansive government role in American society is well on its way to being achieved, without from his point of
view debilitating debates over major national security concerns. In that sense, especially if he is reelected in 2012,
several of his major strategic priorities will have been accomplished. Any good strategy must incorporate the
possibility of pushback or resistance from unexpected quarters. As they say in the U.S. military, the enemy gets a
vote. So, for that matter, do other countries, whether friendly or not. When things do not go exactly according to plan,
any decent strategy and any capable leader adapt. Indeed any decent foreign policy strategy begins with the
recognition for backup plans, since inevitably things will not go exactly according to plan. Other countries rarely
respond to our initial strategic moves in precisely the way we might wish. The question then becomes: What is plan
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B? Obama is tactically very flexible, but at the level of grand strategy he seems to have no backup plan. There is
simply no recognition of the possibility that world politics might not operate on the post-Vietnam liberal assumptions
he has imbibed and represented over the years. Obama’s critics often describe him as providing no strong foreign
policy leadership. They underestimate him. Actually he has a very definite idea of where he wants to take the United
States. His guiding foreign policy idea is that of international accommodation, sparked by American example. He
pursues that overarching concept with great tactical pliability but without any sign of ideological or basic revision
since coming into office. Yet empirically, in one case after another, the strategy is not working. This is a kind of
leadership, to be sure, but leadership in the wrong direction. Obama believes that liberal domestic initiatives will
bolster American economic power and competitiveness. How can the Obama administration adapt and adjust to the
failures of its strategy of accommodation? It can admit that the attempted diplomatic engagement of Iran has failed,
and shift toward a strategy of comprehensive pressure against that regime. It can make it abundantly clear to both
the Taliban and al Qaeda that the United States will not walk away from Afghanistan, despite the beginning
drawdown. It can start treating Russia as a geopolitical rival, which it is, rather than simply as a diplomatic partner. It
can strengthen U.S. missile defenses as a form of insurance against nuclear proliferators. There is a long list of
policy recommendations that can be made on specific regional and functional matters, but the prior and most
important point is the need for a change in mentality. President Obama needs to stop working on the assumption that
U.S. foreign policy concessions or gestures directed at the gallery of elite transatlantic opinion — whether on nuclear
arms control, counterterrorism, or climate change — will somehow be reciprocated by specific foreign governments in
the absence of some very hard bargaining. He needs to grasp that U.S. strategic disengagement from specific
regional theaters, whether promised or underway, is taken as a sign of weakness in those regions and not simply as
a sign of benevolent restraint. He needs to recognize that America’s international reputation consists not only of
working toward his own definition of the moral high ground, but also very much of a reputation for strength, and
specifically of a reputation for the willingness to use force. He needs to stop operating on the premise that past
American foreign policy decisions are the ultimate source of much violent discord in the world today. He needs to be
willing to divide the international system conceptually and operationally into friends and enemies, as they actually
exist, and to support America’s friends while pressuring and opposing its enemies relentlessly. Finally, he needs to
admit the limited effect of his own personal charisma on the foreign policies of other governments. The president of
the United States is not an international community organizer. If the conceptual framework that underpins Obama’s
foreign policy strategy is altered, then better policies will flow on a wide range of specific issues. Obama needs to be
willing to support America’s friends while pressuring and opposing its enemies relentlessly. Admittedly, there is little
chance that Obama will concede any of this. One of the things we know from historical example is that presidents
tend to keep operating on their own inbuilt foreign policy assumptions, even as contrary evidence piles up. It usually
takes either a dramatic external shock, or a new administration altogether, to bring about a major revaluation of
existing assumptions. Curiously, this resistance to contrary evidence in foreign policy appears to be even truer of
highly educated, self-confident, and intelligent people with core ideological convictions — a description that certainly
fits President Obama. Obama is malleable on tactics, and he takes great care to project an aura of sensible calm, but
in truth he is a conviction president powered by certain core ideological beliefs and vaulting policy ambitions. His
characteristic response when these core beliefs and ambitions are truly tested by opponents or events is not to bend,
but to bristle. He is therefore particularly unlikely to admit or even perceive that a foreign policy strategy based upon
faulty assumptions of international accommodation is failing or has failed. Nor is it politically convenient for him to do
so. More likely, he will continue along his chosen path, offering nothing more than tactical adjustments, until some
truly dramatic event occurs which brings his whole foreign policy strategy into question — an Iranian nuclear test, for
example.
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Generic Engagement Unpopular
Engagement with Latin America’s a fight in congress
Meyer and Sullivan ‘12
[Peter J. Meyer - Analyst in Latin American Affairs and Mark P. Sullivan - Specialist in Latin American Affairs, “U.S.
Foreign Assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean: Recent Trends and FY2013 Appropriations”, June 26th,
2012, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42582.pdf]
At this juncture it is uncertain if Congress will approve a stand-alone FY2013 foreign aid appropriations measure, or
whether such legislation will be rolled into an omnibus appropriations measure that combines several appropriations
bills. With increasing frequency, Congress has included the language of appropriations bills that have not first
received House or Senate floor action in omnibus appropriations measures. In these cases, the lack of floor action on
the individual bills has reduced the opportunities for Members to consider and amend regular appropriations
measures. For example, for FY2012 foreign aid appropriations, neither chamber approved individual State
Department, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs appropriations bills before such appropriations were include
in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012 (P.L. 112-74). If similar action is taken for FY2013, it would continue the
pattern of reduced opportunities for Members that are not on the Appropriations Committees to consider and debate
foreign aid legislation, including assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean. To date in the FY2013 foreign aid
appropriations process, the Administration has requested a 9% reduction in foreign aid to Latin America and the
Caribbean while House and Senate Appropriations Committees have approved bills that would likely further reduce
U.S. assistance going to the region, although by how much is unclear. The House bill, H.R. 5857, would reduce the
Administration’s worldwide foreign aid request by almost 12% while the Senate bill, S. 3241, would reduce overall
foreign aid by almost 5%. Potential automatic spending cuts stemming from the implementation of the Budget Control
Act of 2011 (P.L. 112-25) could result in further cuts in worldwide foreign assistance, including aid to Latin America
and the Caribbean. Further reductions in assistance to the region beyond the Administration’s FY2013 request would
force the Administration to make even more difficult choices about where to prioritize assistance and scale back
some of its foreign aid programs in a critical neighboring region where the United States has extensive ties and
diverse economic, political, and security interests.
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More evidence – no political will for the plan, only backlash
Meyer and Sullivan ‘12
[Peter J. Meyer - Analyst in Latin American Affairs and Mark P. Sullivan - Specialist in Latin American Affairs, “U.S.
Foreign Assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean: Recent Trends and FY2013 Appropriations”, June 26th,
2012, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42582.pdf]
When considering foreign assistance levels for Latin American and Caribbean nations, Congress might examine the
issues of political will and program sustainability. According to the State Department’s first Quadrennial Diplomacy
and Development Review (QDDR), the United States should “assess and monitor host nations’ political will to make
the reforms necessary to make effective use of U.S. assistance to ensure our assistance is being targeted where it
can have the most impact.”76 Unless partner nations are willing to implement complementary reforms and take
ownership and sustain programs as aid is reduced and withdrawn, the results of U.S. assistance will likely be limited
and short-lived. The nations of Latin America and the Caribbean have a mixed record in terms of demonstrating
political will and ensuring program sustainability. The Colombian government, which has benefitted from high levels
of U.S. assistance for more than a decade, has undertaken numerous reforms and raised revenue. As a result, the
United States is able to carry out a managed transition of its assistance programs in the country in which aid is slowly
reduced as Colombia takes over financial and technical responsibility.77 Similarly, USAID is closing its mission in
Panama, and closing out its voluntary family planning programs in a number of other Latin American countries
because partner nations have developed the capacity to manage and fund the programs on their own.78 Despite
these successes, numerous GAO reports over the past decade indicate that political will has often been lacking in the
region, especially with regard to raising sufficient government revenue to sustain efforts initiated with U.S. support. A
2003 study of U.S. democracy programs in six Latin American nations found “cases in which U.S.-funded training
programs, computer systems, and police equipment had languished for lack of resources after U.S. support
ended.”79 Likewise, a 2010 study of counter-narcotics programs found that several countries in the region were
unable to use U.S.-provided boats for patrol or interdiction operations due to a lack of funding for fuel and
maintenance.80 Even MCC-funded projects, in which assistance is contingent on partner nation actions, have run
into problems with program sustainability. A July 2011 study of the MCC compact in Honduras found that the lifespan
of roads built to improve small farmers’ access to markets may be relatively limited as the municipalities where they
were constructed lack the equipment, expertise, and funding for road maintenance.81
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Link – Obama Will Use Political Capital
Obama will use PC – key to immigration reform that turns whole aff - vital link to econ, all
foreign policy effectiveness and US Latin relations – unfortunately even minor engagement
efforts spark intense opposition from Cuba lobby and cost capital
Shifter, 12
By Michael Shifter, Inter American Dialogue, http://www.thedialogue.org/page.cfm?pageID=32&pubID=3186
Revista Ideele, December 27, 2012
Not surprisingly, Obama has been explicit that reforming the US’s shameful and broken immigration system will be a
top priority in his second term. There is every indication that he intends to use some of his precious political capital –
especially in the first year – to push for serious change. The biggest lesson of the last election was that the “Latino
vote” was decisive. No one doubts that it will be even more so in future elections. During the campaign, many
Republicans -- inexplicably -- frightened immigrants with offensive rhetoric. But the day after the election, there was
talk, in both parties, of comprehensive immigration reform. Despite the sudden optimism about immigration reform,
there is, of course, no guarantee that it will happen. It will require a lot of negotiation and deal-making. Obama will
have to invest a lot of his time and political capital -- twisting some arms, even in his own party. Resistance will not
disappear. There is also a chance that something unexpected could happen that would put off consideration of
immigration reform. Following the horrific massacre at a Connecticut elementary school on December 14, for
example, public pressure understandably mounted for gun control, at least the ban of assault weapons. But a
decision to pursue that measure -- though desperately needed -- would take away energy and time from other
priorities like immigration. Changes in immigration laws would reflect little about the foreign policy direction of the
Obama administration. Rather, they should be interpreted as expressions of demographic transformations and
political interests in the US. But meaningful immigration reform would be welcomed throughout Latin America, and
particularly in Mexico (Mexicans make up some 60 percent of unauthorized migrants in the US), where the issue has
long been a source of tension in the bilateral relationship. Among other issues that will be watched closely in Latin
American policy are Cuba and drugs. In Florida Obama won about half of the Cuban American vote on November 6th
-- a big increase from 2008. Younger Cuban Americans want to change a proven, failed Cuba policy, and they are
not single-issue voters like the older generation. But few are betting that Obama will move boldly to take advantage
of the widening political space on Cuba policy. He will likely continue to be cautious. Cuba is not a high priority, there
are few political benefits for him, and ending the embargo would require an act of Congress, which still has key
Cuban American members (three Senators!) who will fight against any change. US public opinion on the drug
question seems to be changing as well. But despite the votes in Colorado and Washington to legalize recreational
use of marijuana, Obama will move slowly, if at all, at the federal level. With good reason, Mexicans are especially
sensitive to a basic contradiction: a trend towards marijuana decriminalization at the state level in the US, together
with a national policy that emphasizes taking on drug cartels that deal to some extent in marijuana – and that have
resulted in thousands of Mexican deaths. No major changes should be expected in US Latin America policy in
Obama’s second term. In foreign policy, not surprisingly, priority attention will be given to the strategic turn to Asia,
Iran’s nuclear program, the tumultuous Middle East, Europe’s severe, economic crisis, Pakistan, and the withdrawal
of US troops from Afghanistan (which may be accompanied by agreements with the Taliban). Although Obama will
have an entirely new foreign policy team, key decisions on the most crucial issues will probably continue to be made
at the White House -- not at State or Defense or Treasury. Obama will be looking for opportunities to leave his mark,
establish his legacy, and earn the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded -- chiefly for not being George W. Bush -- in
2009. But first Obama will have to put the US’s financial and economic house in order. That difficult task is not only
vital for this country but for the world. It is the best foreign policy.
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They Say: Winners Win
Everyone can see right through it—won’t result in a win
Goldberg 10(Jonah, Syndicated Journalist, February 26, "A Hidden Cost of the Health-Care Summit",
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/195494/hidden-cost-health-care-summit/jonah-goldberg)jn
It seems that I wasn’t alone in finding Obama increasingly un-charming as the event unfolded yesterday. Even Dana Milbank notes that Obama ultimately came
across as a bit of a condescending, well, jerk. Here’s Michael Gerson: “President Obama, as usual, was fluent, professorial and occasionally prickly. Some are
impressed by the president’s informed, academic manner. Others (myself included) find an annoying condescension in Obama’s never-ending
seminar.”Obama’s habit of deciding what is a serious point and what are mere “talking points,” started out seeming like
an attempt at fairness but ultimately revealed
itself to be one of the more grating aspects of his personality and his philosophy
(It’s worth noting that many points become talking points because they are such good points!). After awhile, it seemed Obama deemed many talking
points to be illegitimate simply because they were inconvenient to his argument. This is not news to certain
people who have greater immunity to his charms. Obama has a very thin skin when it comes to
disagreement. He has a Fox News obsession. At campaign-style events, Obama has insisted that he doesn’t want to “hear any talk” from the people who
“created this mess” or some such. Remember his call for a “new declaration of independence not just in our nation, but in our own lives — from ideology and
small thinking, prejudice and bigotry.” Translation: Ideological objections to what I want to do are akin to bigotry and stupidity.I think one of the great explanations
for the mess the Obama administration is in — the whole cowbell dynamic — is that he, his advisers, and many of his fans in the press cannot fully grasp or
appreciate the fact that he is not as charming to everyone else as he is to them (or himself). Hence, they think that the more he talks, the more persuasive he will
be. Every president faces a similar problem which is why, until Obama, every White House tried to economize the deployment of the president’s political capital.
The Obama White House strategy is almost the rhetorical version of its Keynesianism, the more you spend, the
bigger the payoff. The hidden cost of this strategy is that the more he talks the more pronounced or
noticeable this tendency becomes for the average American. Eventually, it could come to define him. Presidents — all presidents
— get caricatured eventually because certain traits become more identifiable over time. That’s one reason why parodies of presidents on
Saturday Night Live get more convincing and funnier at the end of their terms — everyone can recognize the traits and habits by then. The more
instances where Obama grabs all of the attention while acting like an arrogant college professor — particularly as memories of Bush fade
— the more opportunities the White House creates where people can say, “Hey, I finally figured out what
bugs me about this guy.” Not long after that, it becomes a journalistic convention, a staple of late-night jokes and basis of SNL parodies.
GOP blocks bills- no spillover
Gvosdev 10(Nikolas, World Politics Review Columnist, November 19, "The Realist Prism: Hard Realities, Hard Choices for
Obama", http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/7096/the-realist-prism-hard-realities-hard-choices-for-obama)jn
It is very likely that come the end of November, after a busy month traveling to Asia and Europe, President Barack Obama will have emerged with few decisive
victories to burnish his image after the "shellacking" he took in the midterm elections. Instead, Obama and his team will have to adjust to some hard realities.
Though the new Congress will not be seated until January 2011, we are already seeing changes in the
political climate in Washington that will test the administration's ability to show, both to Americans and to other governments, that the executive branch is
still in the driver's seat when it comes to setting U.S. foreign-policy priorities.As Dimitri Trenin observed in charting the likely demise of the New START treaty,
"Partisanship in
Washington has reached a new level, infecting not just longstanding domestic policy
disputes, but also foreign policy and national security issues." There will be no Vanderbergian moment for
the president over the next two years. Josh Rogin quotes an anonymous Republican Capitol Hill staffer as declaring, "You are going to
see more aggressiveness to push an agenda and not to defer to the administration." Even in areas where we
can expect some agreement between congressional Republicans and the White House, such as passing
the free trade agreement for Colombia, the GOP will do everything in its power to prevent Obama from
claiming any sort of success for his administration. ...
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Wins don’t generate capital
Nicholas and Hook 10(Peter and Janet, Tribune Washington Bureau, July 30, "Obama the Velcro president",
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/30/nation/la-na-velcro-presidency-20100730)jn
Through two terms, Reagan
eluded much of the responsibility for recession and foreign policy scandal. In less than two years,
Obama has become ensnared in blame.Hoping to better insulate Obama, White House aides have sought to give
other Cabinet officials a higher profile and additional public exposure. They are also crafting new ways to explain the president's policies to a
skeptical public.But Obama remains the colossus of his administration — to a point where trouble anywhere in the
world is often his to solve.The president is on the hook to repair the Gulf Coast oil spill disaster, stabilize Afghanistan, help fix
Greece's ailing economy and do right by Shirley Sherrod, the Agriculture Department official fired as a result of a
misleading fragment of videotape. What's not sticking to Obama is a legislative track record that his recent
predecessors might envy. Political dividends from passage of a healthcare overhaul or a financial regulatory
bill have been fleeting.Instead, voters are measuring his presidency by a more immediate yardstick: Is he creating
enough jobs? So far the verdict is no, and that has taken a toll on Obama's approval ratings. Only 46% approve of Obama's job performance, compared with
47% who disapprove, according to Gallup's daily tracking poll."I think the accomplishments are very significant, but I think most people would look at this and say,
'What was the plan for jobs?' " said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.). "The
agenda he's pushed here has been a very important
agenda, but it hasn't translated into dinner table conversations."Reagan was able to glide past controversies with his popularity
largely intact. He maintained his affable persona as a small-government advocate while seeming above the fray in his own administration.Reagan was
untarnished by such calamities as the 1983 terrorist bombing of the Marines stationed in Beirut and scandals involving members of his administration. In the
1986 Iran-Contra affair, most of the blame fell on lieutenants.Obama lately has tried to rip off the Velcro veneer. In a revealing moment
during the oil spill crisis, he reminded Americans that his powers aren't "limitless." He told residents in Grand Isle, La., that he is a flesh-and-blood president, not
a comic-book superhero able to dive to the bottom of the sea and plug the hole."I can't suck it up with a straw," he said.But as a candidate in 2008, he set skyhigh expectations about what he could achieve and what government could accomplish.
Victories build opposition
Purdum 10(Todd, Award winning journalist for the NYT,Vanity Fair Columnist, December 20, "Obama Is Suffering
Because of His Achievements, Not Despite Them", http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/12/obama-issuffering-because-of-his-achievements-not-despite-them.html)jn
With this weekend’s decisive Senate repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy for gay service
members, can anyone seriously doubt Barack Obama’s patient willingness to play the long game? Or his remarkable
success in doing so? In less than two years in office—often against the odds and the smart money’s predictions at any given moment—Obama has managed to
achieve a landmark overhaul of the nation’s health insurance system; the most sweeping change in the financial regulatory system since the Great Depression;
the stabilization of the domestic auto industry; and the repeal of a once well-intended policy that even the military itself had come to see as unnecessary and
unfair. So why isn’t his political standing higher? Precisely because of the raft of legislative victories he’s
achieved. Obama has pushed through large and complicated new government initiatives at a time of record-low public
trust in government (and in institutions of any sort, for that matter), and he has suffered not because he hasn’t “done” anything but
because he’s done so much—way, way too much in the eyes of his most conservative critics. With each victory, Obama’s
opponents grow more frustrated, filling the airwaves and what passes for political discourse with
fulminations about some supposed sin or another. Is it any wonder the guy is bleeding a bit? For his part, Obama resists the pugilistic
impulse. To him, the merit of all these programs has been self-evident, and he has been the first to acknowledge that he has not always done all he could to
explain them, sensibly and simply, to the American public.
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I/L – Political Capital Key
Political capital is key to pass CIR
Bloomberg 13 (3/22, Guest-Worker Visas Sticking Point on Immigration Rewrite,
www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-22/guest-worker-visas-sticking-point-on-immigration-rewrite.html)
With Senate Republicans and Democrats moving closer to an agreement to grant a chance at U.S. citizenship to 11
million undocumented immigrants, a long- simmering dispute between organized labor and the business lobby risks
sapping the measure’s momentum. The two constituencies are at odds over a new program to
provide U.S. work visas to low-skilled foreign workers, placing pressure on lawmakers poised for a
compromise. Unions are pressing for a limited visa system that guarantees better wages for future immigrant workers, while businesses seek a broader
program more responsive to their hiring needs. It’s the thornier side of what is otherwise a broadening consensus in
both parties around an immigration plan, whose centerpiece is a path to U.S. citizenship for undocumented immigrants. A bipartisan group of eight
senators is nearing a deal to bolster border security and workplace verification while revamping the legal immigration system. Republican Senator Marco
Rubio of Florida, a member of the group, called the guest-worker issue “one of the more difficult parts” of the
negotiations. “I’m not going to be part of a bill that doesn’t create a process whereby people can come to this country temporarily in the future if we need
them,” Rubio said yesterday. “There’s no secret that the broader labor movement, with some exceptions, would rather
not even have an immigration bill.” Political Consequences The disagreement carries significant political
consequences for Republicans and Democrats alike, essentially making them choose between their strongest
constituencies -- organized labor for Democrats and big business for Republicans -- and achievement of an overriding policy goal
that both parties increasingly see as an electoral imperative. Hispanics accounted for 10 percent of voters in the 2012 presidential election. President Barack
Obama won 71 percent of their votes, and just 27 percent backed Republican nominee Mitt Romney, who had proposed “self-deportation” for undocumented
immigrants. Since then, a growing chorus of Republicans has publicly backed legal status for undocumented immigrants. Meanwhile, a group of Republican
officials who unveiled a top-to-bottom review this week called for the party to back “comprehensive immigration reform” or see its appeal shrink. “It is in neither
party’s interest for one group within a party to stop this, because it is bad for the economy if we don’t have immigration reform,” former Mississippi Governor and
Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour said this week, referring to labor unions’ objections to a guest-worker program. Worker Program
Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, a Democrat co- chairing an immigration task force with Barbour at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, said
it is ultimately up to Obama to persuade Democrats not to abandon the bill if the immigrant-worker program
doesn’t match the unions’ agenda. “If we don’t get guest-worker provisions that are exactly in line with what labor wants,
we can’t hold up the bill because of that,” Rendell said. “We’ve got to do the best we can to preserve and
protect the interests of organized labor, but in the end you can’t always get what you want.” Obama, he added, has “his work cut out
for him.”
CIR will pass and political capital is key to passage
Kludt 13 (Tom, Report: Obama To Make Push For Immigration Reform This Month
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/report-obama-to-make-push-for-immigration-reform)
President Barack Obama is prepared to use his political capital to pursue immigration reform this month,
according to a report published Wednesday in the Huffington Post. ¶ The report cited an anonymous official in the Obama administration, who suggested that the
president is unlikely to be deterred by the protracted fiscal cliff debate that will be revisited in the coming months. As such, the administration will reportedly move
quickly on both immigration reform and gun control. ¶ The report also quoted an unnamed Senate
Democratic aide, who gauged the
likelihood of immigration reform to pass Congress. Citing the fiscal cliff deal that passed the House of Represenatives this week
with a combination of Republican and Democratic votes, the aide expressed confidence that House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)
will be able to overcome expected opposition from the conservative wing of his caucus
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Obama’s PC is high and key to pass CIR
Global Post 13 (4/25 Obama invokes Bush to push immigration overhaul
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130425/obama-invokes-bush-push-immigration-overhaul)
Obama's thumping victory among Hispanic voters in his November re-election race has convinced
some Republicans that the time is ripe to try again to reform US immigration laws , though the issue remains a
delicate one.¶ Bush, who dealt with immigration as governor of Texas, realized early in his big time political career that Republicans needed to engage better with
the Hispanic community, a fast growing segment of the US electorate.¶ Obama
is now in Bush's former position, seeking to
build support for immigration reform, as a bipartisan group of senators tests the political winds
with comprehensive legislation soon to come to the floor.
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***IMPACT MODULES
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Impact Module – Disease
High skilled immigration is key to innovation in medical biotech
No and Walsh 10, both at Georgia Institute of Technology, (Yeonji and John, “ The importance of foreign-born
talent for US innovation,” Nature Biotechnology 28 , 289–291, http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v28/n3/full/nbt0310289.html)
As noted in a recent Nature editorial, the United
States has traditionally relied heavily on immigrants to complement
existing science and engineering talent1. Recent debates on both immigration and innovation policy have brought renewed interest in the role
of non-US born science and engineering (S&E) personnel in the American innovation system2, 3, 4, 5. As the economy has worsened, there have been
increasing calls to restrict immigrant workers, including high-skilled S&E workers. For example, the Grassley-Sanders amendment in the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act restricts firms receiving stimulus funding from hiring immigrants on H-1B visas for one year. The Export Administration Regulations limit the
research fields and information access of non-US scientists. The PATRIOT Act of 2001, the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002 and
the Visa Mantis program have created a “chilly climate” for the non-US born. H-1B visas for high-skilled workers and international applications to American
graduate programs decreased significantly after 2001 (refs. 6,7). These policies are causing concerns about possible adverse effects on America's
competitiveness because of the significant contributions foreign-born S&E workers make to US science and technology3, 4, 5, 8, 9. Employers in hightech industries such as the software, computer science and engineering sectors have been lobbying to have the cap on H-1B visas raised. The recent extension
of the period of Optional Practical Training for international students is an attempt to respond to these concerns. The editorial in Nature calls for streamlining the
visa process and reducing barriers to entry1. Given
concerns about the economic downturn and the importance of
innovation to economic growth, it is crucial to get a more detailed understanding of the role of non-US talent
in contributing to technological advance and commercialization of inventions. Recent work suggests that entrepreneurs
born outside of the US are disproportionately represented among high-tech startups3, 10. And there is some evidence that they generate a disproportionate
number of patents4, 11. However, until now, there have been few systematic data tracing the commercialization
outcomes of a large sample of patents or papers, although recent studies are efforts in that direction4, 12. To further our
understanding of the impact of the foreign born on the US innovation system, we used a unique data set based on a nationally
representative survey of over 1,900 US-based inventors on 'triadic' patents (those granted in the United States and also
applied for in Japan and Europe) to examine the percentage of foreign-born inventors, their country of origin and the
relations between country of origin (United States or other) and our various measures of patent quality (Supplementary Methods).
We focus across the innovative landscape, not limiting our analysis to high-tech sectors or to particular industries such as information technology (IT). For
example, our data include a significant number of biotech, biomedical and related inventions (266, or about 14% of the
sample)—representing
fields have received less attention in this debate than have IT and other engineering-
related fields. Our data allow us to combine the inventor-, project- and company-level information from the survey with invention-level information on a
particular named patent to examine the value and outcomes of each invention. Therefore, unlike in prior work, we can estimate patent-level
models of invention commercialization, controlling for detailed field-, firm-, inventor- and project-level
characteristics, which allows us to specify more accurately the differences between US- and foreign-born
inventors in regard to the likelihood of their inventions becoming commercially available innovations. We also
have multiple measures of patent quality, including self-reports on whether the patent ranks in the top 10% either in terms of technical significance in its field or in
terms of its economic value, and the number of forward citations. Our data can also distinguish high-skilled (PhD-level) and less-skilled immigrants, a distinction
that has important implications for immigration policy. Finally, we can highlight biomedical inventions to investigate the
contribution of the non-US born to advancing biotech and related industries. These new results complement and
move beyond previous work looking at immigrant entrepreneurs and comparing different categories of
immigrants (and native born) on overall measures of patent productivity3, 4, 5. One limitation of our data set is that we are
asking a representative inventor to respond on behalf of the whole project team. About 70% of the inventions have multiple inventors (with a mean of 2.7
inventors). Our sampling strategy targets the first-listed US inventor. In over 95% of the cases, this is the first inventor (and in 27% of the cases the only
inventor). Thus, we are interpreting our sample as representing the 'lead inventor' on the patent and are arguing that this lead inventor has significant influence
on the outcome of the project, such that the lead inventor's characteristics (including country of origin, education background, firm size) can be used to
characterize the invention. For example, we will code patents as being generated by foreign-born inventors if the lead inventor (respondent) is foreign born.
There may be additional US-born inventors listed on the patent (and vice versa for patents coded as being by US-born inventors), which adds some
measurement error to our classification. A check of subsamples limited to first inventors and solo inventors shows that the descriptive statistics and the
distinctions between US- and foreign-born individuals are robust with respect to these differing subsets of representative inventors (Supplementary
Methods). Results We find that almost 30% of lead inventors are non-US born, compared to only about 11%
of the overall US population and about 22% of the college-educated S&E workforce7, 13. Among biotech-related
inventions, 31% of the lead inventors were foreign born. China and India each account for about 15% of the foreign-born respondents (Fig. 1). If we include
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Hong Kong and Taiwan, over 25% of all inventors born outside of the US (and 7% of all US inventors) are Chinese. We also find significant numbers from the
United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and the Russian Federation. Most inventors born outside of the US received their highest degree in the US, but a significant
minority (over 30%) was educated overseas. Inventors born outside of the US are also much more likely to have a PhD (68% versus 37%, P < 0.01). The
distribution across the type of organizations is very similar across the two groups. The foreign born are under-represented in mechanical and miscellaneous
technology sectors. They are more likely to have a degree in chemistry and less likely to have a social science or humanities degree (Supplementary
Methods). Some of this high rate of patenting is thus likely to be due to the over-representation of the foreign-born among the most educated (especially
PhDs) as well as to the concentration of the non-US-born in S&E fields14. Consistent with prior studies, we found that non-US-born
inventors make a disproportionate contribution to the US innovation system (Table 1)8, 15. The average number of
invention disclosures in the last three years (10 versus 9) and publications in the last three years (6 versus 2) were significantly higher for the non-US born. In
addition, the percentages of patents self-reported as being in the top 10% in technical significance (22% versus 13%) or economic value (16% versus 11%) were
also significantly higher for the non-US born lead inventors' patents than for those of the US born, while the mean number of forward citations (3.2 versus 3.1)
and percent of patents commercialized (63% versus 60%) were at least as high. To specify the contribution of the foreign-born status, controlling for other
correlates of innovative performance such as firm, project and invention characteristics, we conducted a series of regression analyses. We controlled for the lead
inventor having a PhD degree, and also tested models adding an interaction term for foreign-born status with PhD status (Table 2, Model
3 in Supplementary
Methods), to see whether the high-skilled foreign-born inventors are more likely to produce high-quality patents than US-born
Methods). shows the effects of the lead inventor being foreign
born on each of our output measures, without controlling for other factors, and Table 2, Model 2 in Supplementary Methods show models with
appropriate control variables for each outcome. We began with measures of productivity (publications and disclosures)4, 8, 11. We controlled for having a PhD,
PhDs (or foreign-born individuals without PhDs) (Table 2, Model 1 in Supplementary
time spent on invention-related activity, technology class and type of organization (large firm, small firm or public research organization). Consistent with prior
work, the expected probability of having one or more publications was 26% for the US born and 38% for the foreign born (for this and other estimates of expected
probabilities, we set the other variables in the logistic model to the mean or the reference category)8. The foreign born also had higher expected publication
counts (Supplementary Methods). However, again consistently with prior work, we found that, controlling for technology class, education and time
spent on inventing, the foreign born were not more likely to have any invention disclosures or have higher numbers of disclosures4. As expected, we also
found that PhDs (both US and foreign born) have more publications and more disclosures. The interaction effects between PhD and foreign-born status were not
significant. Next, we examined the quality of the patented inventions using our three measures (self-rated technical significance, self-rated economic value and
counts of forward citations). For these models, we controlled for organization type (as above), size of the project (inventor months and number of inventors),
project goal (enhancing the technology base of the firm or generating a new line of business, with developing the existing business as the excluded category) and
technology class. The expected probability of having a top 10% patent (technical significance) was 21% for the patents of US-born lead inventors and 37% for
the foreign-born (net of the control variables). This gap was even greater among the PhD-level lead inventors, producing a 20% higher probability of a foreignborn lead inventor with a PhD having a top 10% invention, compared to a US-born lead inventor with a PhD. When we added the interaction term, the main effect
of being foreign born (that is, for those foreign-born individuals without a PhD) was not statistically significant. We found similar results for self-reported economic
value. The
percent of top 10% patents (economic value) was 12% for the US-born lead inventors but 21% for
the foreign-born. When we added the foreign-born with PhD interaction term, foreign-born lead inventors still
had a significantly higher chance of a top 10% patent (economic value), whereas those with a PhD (either US born or foreign born)
were not significantly more likely to have patents of top 10% economic value (in part because they are more likely to work on more upstream projects that may
have high technical significance but may not be as commercially valuable). We also examined forward citations to these patents. When estimating the number of
forward citations, we include additional controls for patent characteristics that are likely to drive citations, as well as education, organization, project and
technology class (Supplementary Methods). Patents by non-US-born lead inventors have about 9% more forward citations. Again, we found a
negative relation between the lead inventor having a PhD and the number of forward citations to the patent (similar to economic value) both overall and when we
examined the non-US-born and PhD interaction. Finally, we examined differences in the probability of commercializing the invention, controlling for other
predictors of commercialization, such as the type of organization, technology class, project goal, size of the project and technical significance of the patent. We
found that having a non-US-born lead inventor increases the expected commercialization rate (net of other variables) from 78% to 83%. Again, we found that
inventions by PhDs were less likely to be commercialized, controlling for the technical significance and types of projects (that is, whether more upstream or closer
to market). Thus, not only do foreign-born lead inventors produce more valuable inventions, but, net of their value, these inventions are also more likely to be
commercialized, suggesting that inventions with foreign-born lead inventors are over-represented among successful innovations. When we separated the foreign
born into those whose highest degree was obtained in the United States and those who finished their education overseas, we found that both groups' patents
had higher average value (compared to those of the US born) across all three measures (Supplemental Methods), although only the US-educated
foreign-born lead inventors' patents had a significantly higher probability of being commercialized. Thus, both foreign-born lead inventors educated in the United
States (likely first arriving on student visas) and those trained overseas (likely arriving on H-1B visas) make a disproportionate contribution to US
innovation4. Finally, we tested to see whether biotech inventions differed from other inventions and whether the role of the foreign born differed from those
in other technologies, controlling for inventor, firm and project characteristics (Supplemental Methods). Compared to other technologies, biotech is
characterized by both an especially close link with science and an especially strong dependence on patents. In addition, commercialization lags tend to be
longer, in part because of the extensive testing related to the regulatory process. We found that biotech inventors had above-average numbers of publications,
suggesting closer links between science and commercial activity in this field. Biotech inventions had, on average, fewer forward citations, which likely reflects
citation practices and the extent of prior art. Commercialization rates were also lower, probably due to the greater uncertainty of biotech inventions (such that
many inventions are patented on the hope that some will be successfully commercialized) and longer commercialization lags. When we compared the foreign
born working in biotech to the foreign born in our sample from non-biotech sectors, we found few differences (although the foreign born in biotech were less likely
to publish than the foreign born in other fields or the US born in biotech). Thus, overall, we found that the foreign-born lead inventors in biotech generally produce
inventions that are as valuable as those in other fields (such as IT) that have been the focus of the debates on high-skilled immigration. Discussion These
findings suggest that scientists and engineers born outside of the US play a major role not only in our
scientific output but also our innovation output. Although many of the measures we assessed are self-
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reported and subject to potential biases, the consistency across several kinds of measures, and with prior
work using different measures, suggests that some confidence can be placed in the results. As has been observed in
previous studies, we find that foreign-born individuals are no more likely to invent, once we control for field and degree4. However, the quality of the patents
by lead inventors born outside of the US are higher on average (whether assessed on the basis of self-reported quality, forward citation or the probability of
commercialization), even after controlling for technology class, education level, and firm and project characteristics. Moreover, the contribution of foreign-born
inventors in the US could be even larger if we took into account possible spillover effects14. These
findings suggest that the
combination of self-selection by those coming to the US, and screening by universities and firms as well as
by immigration officials, are leading to significant numbers of foreign-born inventors who are producing
inventions of above-average quality and making an important contribution to the US innovation system.
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Extinction
Yu 9 (Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science (Victoria, Human Extinction: The Uncertainty of Our Fate, 22
May 2009, http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/spring-2009/human-extinction-the-uncertainty-of-our-fate)
A pandemic will kill off all humans .¶ In the past, humans have indeed fallen victim to viruses. Perhaps
the best-known case was the bubonic plague that killed up to one third of the European population in the mid-14th century (7). While vaccines have
been developed for the plague and some other infectious diseases, new viral strains are constantly emerging — a process
that maintains the possibility of a pandemic-facilitated human extinction.¶ Some surveyed students mentioned AIDS as a potential pandemic-causing virus. It is
true that scientists have been unable thus far to find a sustainable cure for AIDS, mainly due to HIV’s rapid and constant evolution. Specifically, two factors
account for the virus’s abnormally high mutation rate: 1. HIV’s use of reverse transcriptase, which does not have a proof-reading mechanism, and 2. the lack of
an error-correction mechanism in HIV DNA polymerase (8). Luckily, though, there are certain characteristics of HIV that make it a poor candidate for a largescale global infection: HIV can lie dormant in the human body for years without manifesting itself, and AIDS itself does not kill directly, but rather through the
weakening of the immune system. ¶ However, for more easily transmitted viruses such as influenza, the
evolution of new strains could
prove far more consequential . The simultaneous occurrence of antigenic drift (point mutations that
lead to new strains) and antigenic shift (the inter-species transfer of disease) in the influenza virus
could produce a new version of influenza for which scientists may not immediately find a cure . Since
influenza can spread quickly, this lag time could potentially lead to a “global influenza pandemic,” according to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (9). The most recent scare of this variety came in 1918 when bird flu managed to kill over 50 million people around the
world in what is sometimes referred to as the Spanish flu pandemic. Perhaps even more frightening is the fact that only 25 mutations were required to convert the
original viral strain — which could only infect birds — into a human-viable strain (10).
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Impact Module – Hegemony
High skilled labor is key to hegemony
Robert L. Paarlberg, Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College, and Associate at the Weatherhead Center
for International Affairs at Harvard University, 2004, International Security (29.1), Project Muse
Can the United States maintain its global lead in science, the new key to its recently unparalleled
military dominance? U.S. scientific prowess has become the deep foundation of U.S. military hegemony.
U.S. weapons systems currently dominate the conventional battlefield because they incorporate powerful
technologies available only from scientifically dominant U.S. weapons laboratories. Yet under conditions of
globalization, scientific and technical (S&T) knowledge is now spreading more quickly and more widely, suggesting that hegemony
in this area might be difficult for any one country to maintain. Is the scientific hegemony that lies beneath U.S. weapons
dominance strong and durable, or only weak and temporary? Military primacy today comes from weapons quality, not
quantity. Each U.S. military service has dominating weapons not found in the arsenals of other states. The U.S. Air Force will soon have five different kinds
of stealth aircraft in its arsenal, while no other state has even one. U.S. airborne targeting capabilities, built around global positioning system (GPS) satellites,
joint surveillance and target radars, and unmanned aerial vehicles are dominating and unique.1 On land, the U.S. Army has 9,000 M1 Abrams tanks, each with a
fire-control system so accurate it can find and destroy a distant enemy tank usually with a single shot. At sea, the U.S. Navy now deploys Seawolf nuclear
submarines, the fastest, quietest, and most heavily armed undersea vessels ever built, plus nine supercarrier battle groups, each carrying scores of aircraft
capable of delivering repeated precision strikes hundreds of miles inland. No other navy has even one supercarrier group.2 [End Page 122] Such weapons are
costly to build, and the large relative size of the U.S. economy (22percent of world gross domestic product [GDP]) plus the even larger U.S. share of global
military spending (43 percent of the world total in 2002, at market exchange rates) have been key to the development and deployment of these forces. Yet
economic dominance and spending dominance would not suffice without knowledge dominance. It is a
strong and rapidly growing S&T capacity that has allowed the United States to move far ahead of would-be
competitors by deploying new weapons systems with unmatched science- intensive capabilities. It was in the
middle of the twentieth century that the global arms race more fundamentally became a science race. Prior to World War II, military research and development
(R&D) spending absorbed on average less than 1 percent of total major power military expenditures. By the 1980s, the R&D share of major power military
spending had increased to 11-13 percent.3 It was precisely during this period, as science became a more important part of military might, that the United States
emerged as the clear global leader in science. During World War II, the military might of the United States had come more from its industrial capacity (America
could build more) than from its scientific capacity (Europe, especially Germany and the United Kingdom, could still invent more). As that war came to an end,
however, a fortuitous migration of European scientists to the United States plus wartime research investments such as the Manhattan Project gave the United
States the scientific as well as the industrial lead. During the Cold War, the U.S. lead grew stronger. Scientists from the Soviet Union briefly challenged the
United States in space, but then decisively lost the race to the moon. The United States responded to the Soviets' successful launching in 1957 of the world's first
earth-orbiting satellite, SputnikI, with much larger investments in its own science education and weapons R&D programs. By the later stages of the Cold War,
U.S. weapons had attained a decisive quality advantage over Soviet weapons. This first became fully apparent to U.S. intelligence in 1976, when a Soviet pilot
flew his mach-3 MiG-25 Foxbat jet interceptor to Japan in search of asylum. Upon inspection the Foxbat was found to be virtually devoid of any next-generation
technologies; it was little [End Page 123]more than a "rocket with a window." Following the defeat of U.S. forces in Vietnam, some popular critics questioned the
military advantage of high- technology ("gold plated") weapons systems, and suggested that the United States might be better off investing in quantity rather than
quality.4 But the U.S. decision, post-Vietnam, to move away from a large conscript army and toward a smaller and better-trained all-volunteer force became a
reason to increase rather than decrease science investments in weapons quality. During President Ronald Reagan's administration, U.S. military R&D
expenditures doubled, leaving Soviet weapons scientists even further behind and contributing in some measure to the final demoralization of the Soviet
leadership.5 The U.S. weapons quality advantage was in full view for the first time during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when stealth aircraft, lasers, infrared night
vision, and electronics for precision strikes gave U.S. forces a decisive edge.6 Iraqi forces using Soviet equipment were easily broken and expelled from Kuwait
at a total cost of 148 U.S. battle deaths. In the 1999 Kosovo conflict, the United States conducted (this time with no battle deaths) an air campaign so dominating
that the Serb air force did not even attempt to fly. By the time of the Afghanistan war in 2001, the United States was using GPS satellite-guided bombs capable of
striking with devastating precision in any weather, as well as in the dark. From a safe altitude, the U.S. Air Force now could destroy virtually any target on the
surface of the earth, if that target had fixed and known geographic coordinates. In the second Persian Gulf War launched against Iraq in March 2003, the U.S.
qualitative edge was even more prominent. U.S. forces were able to go all the way to Baghdad using only half the number of troops deployed in 1991 and only
one-seventh as many (but far more precise) air-launched munitions, and without a thirty-eight-day bombing campaign (as in the first Gulf War). Only 105 U.S.
battle deaths were suffered during the assault itself; there were fewer unintended civilian casualties (one civilian died for every thirty-five munitions dropped), plus
far less damage to Iraqi buildings, bridges, and roads.7 U.S. [End Page 124] strike aircraft flying up to 1,000 sorties a day were able, even through a blinding
sandstorm, to destroy the tanks and infantry vehicles of the Republican Guard.8 Pervasive GPS capabilities, new sensor systems, near real-time "sensor to
shooter" intelligence, and computer-networked communications allowed U.S. forces to leverage the four key dimensions of the modern battlespace— knowledge,
speed, precision, and lethality—and to prevail quickly at minimal cost.9 The key to this revolution in military affairs (RMA) has been the application of modern
science and engineering—particularly in fields such as physics, chemistry, and information technology (IT)—to weapons design and use. It is the international
dominance of the United States in these fields of science and technology that has made possible U.S. military dominance on the conventional battlefield.10 It
thus becomes important to judge the magnitude and durability of U.S. scientific hegemony. In the sections that follow, I first measure the U.S. lead in S&T relative
to the capabilities of potential rival states by using a variety of science output and resource input indicators. By every indicator, the current lead of the United
States is formidable. Then I judge the durability of the U.S. lead by examining two possible weaknesses
within its foundation. The first is
the greater speed with which scientific knowledge can diffuse (perhaps away from the United States) in the modern age of
globalization. The second is the poor science preparation still provided by so many U.S. public schools in grades K12. Upon examination, these two factors need not present a significant threat to the U.S. global lead in science and
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technology, assuming the United States can remain a large net importer of scientific talent
and knowledge from abroad. Preserving this vital net inflow of scientific assets has been made more difficult, however, by the homeland
security imperatives arising from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It should be the policy of the United States to devise a homeland security strategy
that does not impair the nation's access to foreign science talent. One part of this strategy should be to contain the further [End Page 125]growth of terrorist
threats by avoiding conventional military campaigns that create determined new political adversaries abroad. Victories that bring resentment will breed
resistance, most easily expressed in the form of asymmetric threats against soft targets, including homeland targets. Another part of this strategy should be a
more effective mobilization of the nation's massive S&T capacity when responding to the asymmetric threats that do arise. The
United States is
uniquely capable of innovating new "smart" technologies to protect soft homeland targets against
unconventional threats. The current Fortress America approach risks undercutting the nation's lead in
science by keeping too many talented foreigners out.
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Impact Module – Terrorism
Immigration Reform is Critical to Preventing Terrorism
Republican Rep. Lamar Smith represents Texas as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee September 12,
2011 Immigration Enforcement and Border Security Are the First Line Defense Against Terrorists
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/09/12/next-10-years-immigration-enforcement-and-border-security-are-firstline/#ixzz2GtR7gIux
All of us can remember where we were the day a foreign enemy attacked us on our own soil ten years ago. On that day in September, thousands of innocent
Americans lost their lives. We will never forget them.¶ The 9/11 terrorist attacks forever changed
our perception of what it means to
be safe but it didn’t change who we are. While the threat of terrorism is now a part of our daily lives, we have resolved to continue defending our freedom and
securing the blessings of liberty.¶ In the aftermath of 9/11, we collectively asked ourselves how an attack of this magnitude could have happened. ¶ The 9/11
terrorist attacks demonstrated the need to secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws to
keep terrorists from entering the U.S. Although we have made significant strides to protect the homeland, cracks in our
immigration system and along the border remain.¶ For example, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, we learned that our immigration system
had been used by foreign terrorists to gain a safe haven in the United States. All of the 9/11 hijackers received visas to come to the U.S. And once they were
here, all but one of the 9/11 hijackers acquired some form of a U.S. identification document. These forms of ID helped them board commercial flights on 9/11.¶
Following the devastating attacks, Congress appointed the 9/11 Commission to examine intelligence failures that led to September 11. The 9/11 Commission
recognized these immigration-related weaknesses as part of the problem.¶ To
keep terrorists—who may be in the U.S. illegally—from getting
valid forms of ID, Congress passed the REAL ID Act. The law prohibits illegal immigrants, including terrorists, from obtaining forms of identification that
can be used to board planes and enter federal buildings. Regrettably, the Obama administration has continued to delay its implementation until January 2013.¶
To address visa security, Congress created the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Visa Security Program. The goal was simple: increase
the security of the visa process at U.S. embassies and consulates in “highest-risk” countries. At
visa-issuing posts where the program exists today, all applicants receive additional screening .
Unfortunately, such screening only exists at 19 locations out of a list of about 50 designated “highestrisk” posts worldwide. At other posts, less than 2% receive additional screening .¶ Those who wish to do
America harm are aware of our continued vulnerability. Last February, Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, a 20-year-old citizen of Saudi
Arabia living in Texas, came to the U.S. on a student visa and was charged with the attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.¶ According to the affidavit,
Aldawsari had planned to commit a terrorist attack against the U.S. for years. That is precisely why he applied for a student visa in order to gain entry to the U.S.
and carry out his plot. Aldawsari also wrote in his journal that to avoid detection and to help carry out his plot, he would need multiple drivers’ licenses and a
forged U.S. birth certificate.¶ And this isn’t the only time a terrorist has used our immigration system to come to the U.S. since 9/11. Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab,
the terrorist who attempted to blow up a plane going to Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, had a valid visa at the time of the attempted terror attack. Abdulmutallab
was issued a visa in July 2008, and even after his father expressed concerns to U.S. authorities about his son’s radicalization, his visa was not revoked.¶
Terrorists may also be exploiting weaknesses in the Southwest border to enter the U.S. illegally.
According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), only 44% of the Southwest border is under the
“operational control” of the Border Patrol. Major gaps like these are an open invitation to illegal immigrants and
terrorists . As long as the entire border is not secure, the country is not secure. ¶ Each year, tens of
thousands of illegal immigrants enter the U.S. from countries other than Mexico (OTM) including
some countries with strong ties to terrorist organizations. In Fiscal Year 2010, more than 59,000 OTMS were apprehended
while entering the U.S. These individuals come from countries such as Syria, Iran, Somalia, Nigeria and Pakistan. If we don’t know who is coming into the
country, then we don’t know what harm they might do.¶ The diversity visa program also could allow terrorists to come into the U.S. Created in 1990, this program
is better known as the visa lottery since thousands of immigrants are selected at random to receive visas.¶ Basing
our immigration system
on the luck of the draw is not smart immigration policy— it’s a jackpot for terrorists . Each year,
diversity visas are issued to individuals from countries listed as State Sponsors of Terrorism . For the
2011 program, 1,842 Iranians, 553 Sudanese, and 32 Syrians were issued diversity visas. We should eliminate this program.¶ Strong immigration
enforcement and border security are the first line of defense against terrorists. Until we do that,
Americans will remain vulnerable to attacks.
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Extinction
Ayson 10 (Robert, Professor of Strategic Studies and Director of the Centre for Strategic Studies: New Zealand at
the Victoria University of Wellington, “After a Terrorist Nuclear Attack: Envisaging Catalytic Effects,” Studies in
Conflict & Terrorism, Volume 33, Issue 7, July, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions, InformaWorld)
But these two nuclear worlds—a non-state actor nuclear attack and a catastrophic interstate nuclear exchange—are not necessarily separable. It is just possible
that some sort of terrorist attack, and especially an
act of nuclear terrorism, could precipitate a chain of events leading
to a massive exchange of nuclear weapons between two or more of the states that possess them. In this context,
today’s and tomorrow’s terrorist groups might assume the place allotted during the early Cold War years to new state possessors of small nuclear arsenals who
were seen as raising the risks of a catalytic nuclear war between the superpowers started by third parties. These risks were considered in the late 1950s and
early 1960s as concerns grew about nuclear proliferation, the so-called n+1 problem. It may require a considerable amount of imagination to depict an especially
plausible situation where an act of nuclear terrorism could lead to such a massive inter-state nuclear war. For example, in
the event of a terrorist
nuclear attack on the United States, it might well be wondered just how Russia and/or China could
plausibly be brought into the picture,
not least because they seem unlikely to be fingered as the most obvious state sponsors or encouragers of terrorist groups. They would seem far too responsible to be involved in supporting that sort of
terrorist behavior that could just as easily threaten them as well. Some possibilities, however remote,
do suggest themselves. For example, how might the United States react if it was thought or discovered that the fissile material used in the act of
nuclear terrorism had come from Russian stocks,40 and if for some reason Moscow denied any responsibility for nuclear laxity? The correct attribution of that nuclear material to a particular country might not be a
case of science fiction given the observation by Michael May et al. that while the debris resulting from a nuclear explosion would be “spread over a wide area in tiny fragments, its radioactivity makes it detectable,
identifiable and collectable, and a wealth of information can be obtained from its analysis: the efficiency of the explosion, the materials used and, most important … some indication of where the nuclear material came
if the act of nuclear terrorism came as a complete surprise, and American officials
refused to believe that a terrorist group was fully responsible (or responsible at all) suspicion would shift
immediately to state possessors. Ruling out Western ally countries like the United Kingdom and France, and probably Israel and India as
well, authorities in Washington would be left with a very short list consisting of North Korea, perhaps Iran if its
program continues, and possibly Pakistan. But at what stage would Russia and China be definitely ruled out in this high stakes game of nuclear Cluedo?
In particular, if the act of nuclear terrorism occurred against a backdrop of existing tension in
Washington’s relations with Russia and/or China, and at a time when threats had already been
traded between these major powers,
from.”41 Alternatively,
would officials and political leaders not be tempted to assume the worst? Of course, the chances of this occurring would only seem to increase if the United States was already involved in some sort of
limited armed conflict with Russia and/or China, or if they were confronting each other from a distance in a proxy war, as unlikely as these developments may seem at the present time. The reverse might well apply too: should a nuclear terrorist attack occur in Russia or China during a period of heightened tension or even
Washington’s early response to a
terrorist nuclear attack on its own soil might also raise the possibility of an unwanted (and nuclear
aided) confrontation with Russia and/or China. For example, in the noise and confusion during the immediate aftermath
of the terrorist nuclear attack, the U.S. president might be expected to place the country’s armed forces, including its
nuclear arsenal, on a higher stage of alert. In such a tense environment, when careful planning runs up against the friction of reality, it is just
possible that Moscow and/or China might mistakenly read this as a sign of U.S. intentions to use force
(and possibly nuclear force) against them. In that situation, the temptations to preempt such actions might grow, although it must
be admitted that any preemption would probably still meet with a devastating response. As part of its initial response to the act of
nuclear terrorism (as discussed earlier) Washington might decide to order a significant conventional (or nuclear )
limited conflict with the United States, could Moscow and Beijing resist the pressures that might rise domestically to consider the United States as a possible perpetrator or encourager of the attack?
retaliatory or disarming attack against the leadership of the terrorist group and/or states seen to
support that group. Depending on the identity and especially the location of these targets, Russia
and/or China might interpret such action as being far too close for their comfort, and potentially as an
infringement on their spheres of influence and even on their sovereignty. One far-fetched but perhaps not impossible scenario might
stem from a judgment in Washington that some of the main aiders and abetters of the terrorist action resided somewhere such as Chechnya, perhaps in
connection with what Allison claims is the “Chechen insurgents’ … long-standing interest in all things nuclear.”42 American
pressure on that
part of the world would almost certainly raise alarms in Moscow that might require a degree of advanced
consultation from Washington that the latter found itself unable or unwilling to provide.
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**UNIQUENESS
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Non-Unique – Won’t Pass
Won’t pass the house
Washington Post 6/25 (The Senate is going to pass immigration reform. And the House doesn’t care.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/06/25/the-senate-is-going-to-pass-immigration-reform-and-thehouse-doesnt-care/)
Added another House Republican leadership staffer: “Even
if the bill passes with 70-plus votes in the Senate, the path to
218 in the House is very perilous. Many Republicans are skeptical of even voting on something as
simple as border security, as they feel that it provides a ‘path to Conference [committee]‘ where they are afraid an untenable compromise will
emerge.”¶ During the “fiscal cliff” debate, the Senate passed a bipartisan measure with 89 votes over the opposition
of only five Republicans. But over in the House, less than 40 percent of Republicans supported it, reinforcing the
reality that nothing in the Senate guarantees passage in the lower chamber.
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Link Turn – Plan Popular
Economic engagement is popular
Reuters 12 (5/8 Boehner urges deeper US engagement in Latin America
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/08/usa-trade-boehner-idUSL1E8G81HM20120508)
The U.S. Congress' top Republican on Tuesday called for deeper U.S economic engagement with Latin
America, but also expressed concern over Iranian influence in the region and the "alarming willingness" of some governments to abandon international
norms.¶ "In both Colombia and Mexico, and the entire hemisphere, the U.S. must be clear that we will
not disengage in the fight for free markets and free, secure people," U.S. House of Representatives
Speaker John Boehner said in remarks prepared for delivery at the U.S. State Department.¶ "We
must be clear that we will be there, with our friends and partners in the region, committed to
fighting and winning the war for a free, stable, and prosperous hemisphere," Boehner said, speaking to
the Council of Americas, an organization representing companies that do business in the region.¶ Boehner is due on Tuesday to receive an award from the group
for his work last year on winning congressional approval of free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea.¶ The pacts were negotiated during
the Republican administration of former President George W. Bush, but President Barack Obama, a Democrat, did not submit the agreements to Congress until
late 2011, after negotiating changes to make them more palatable to Democrats and securing a commitment for renewal of a worker retraining program known as
trade adjustment assistance.¶ "When the Colombia Free Trade Agreement enters into force (on May 15), it will be an important moment for the prosperity of our
hemisphere. It is equally important that the Panama Free Trade Agreement be fully implemented in the months ahead," Boehner said, referring to the Obama
administration's ongoing work with Panama to implement that agreement.¶ Boehner
said it was important the United States
"keep the momentum going" by negotiating new agreements to open markets to American exports,
and said he was disappointed Obama has not sought legislation known as "Trade Promotion Authority" which would help the White House do that.
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Political Capital Isn’t Real
Political Capital makes no sense – useless concept – unforeseen events are just as likely.
The consequences of losing capital are just as likely to be positive.
HIRSH 2 – 7 – 13 chief correspondent for National Journal, previously served as the senior editor and national
economics correspondent for Newsweek. Overseas Press Club award for best magazine reporting from abroad in
2001 and for Newsweek’s coverage of the war on terror, which also won a National Magazine Award [Michael Hirsh,
There’s No Such Thing as Political Capital, http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/there-s-no-such-thing-aspolitical-capital-20130207]
On Tuesday, in his State of the Union address, President Obama will do what every president does this time of year.
For about 60 minutes, he will lay out a sprawling and ambitious wish list highlighted by gun control and immigration
reform, climate change and debt reduction. In response, the pundits will do what they always do this time of year:
They will talk about how unrealistic most of the proposals are, discussions often informed by sagacious reckonings of
how much “political capital” Obama possesses to push his program through.¶ Most of this talk will have no bearing
on what actually happens over the next four years.¶ Consider this: Three months ago, just before the November
election, if someone had talked seriously about Obama having enough political capital to oversee passage of both
immigration reform and gun-control legislation at the beginning of his second term—even after winning the election
by 4 percentage points and 5 million votes (the actual final tally)—this person would have been called crazy and
stripped of his pundit’s license. (It doesn’t exist, but it ought to.) In his first term, in a starkly polarized country, the
president had been so frustrated by GOP resistance that he finally issued a limited executive order last August
permitting immigrants who entered the country illegally as children to work without fear of deportation for at least two
years. Obama didn’t dare to even bring up gun control, a Democratic “third rail” that has cost the party elections and
that actually might have been even less popular on the right than the president’s health care law. And yet, for
reasons that have very little to do with Obama’s personal prestige or popularity—variously put in terms of a
“mandate” or “political capital”—chances are fair that both will now happen.¶ What changed? In the case of gun
control, of course, it wasn’t the election. It was the horror of the 20 first-graders who were slaughtered in Newtown,
Conn., in mid-December. The sickening reality of little girls and boys riddled with bullets from a high-capacity assault
weapon seemed to precipitate a sudden tipping point in the national conscience. One thing changed after another.
Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association marginalized himself with poorly chosen comments soon after the
massacre. The pro-gun lobby, once a phalanx of opposition, began to fissure into reasonables and crazies. Former
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who was shot in the head two years ago and is still struggling to speak and walk,
started a PAC with her husband to appeal to the moderate middle of gun owners. Then she gave riveting and
poignant testimony to the Senate, challenging lawmakers: “Be bold.”¶ As a result, momentum has appeared to build
around some kind of a plan to curtail sales of the most dangerous weapons and ammunition and the way people are
permitted to buy them. It’s impossible to say now whether such a bill will pass and, if it does, whether it will make
anything more than cosmetic changes to gun laws. But one thing is clear: The political tectonics have shifted
dramatically in very little time. Whole new possibilities exist now that didn’t a few weeks ago.¶ Meanwhile, the
Republican members of the Senate’s so-called Gang of Eight are pushing hard for a new spirit of compromise on
immigration reform, a sharp change after an election year in which the GOP standard-bearer declared he would
make life so miserable for the 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. that they would “self-deport.” But this
turnaround has very little to do with Obama’s personal influence—his political mandate, as it were. It has almost
entirely to do with just two numbers: 71 and 27. That’s 71 percent for Obama, 27 percent for Mitt Romney, the
breakdown of the Hispanic vote in the 2012 presidential election. Obama drove home his advantage by giving a
speech on immigration reform on Jan. 29 at a Hispanic-dominated high school in Nevada, a swing state he won by a
surprising 8 percentage points in November. But the movement on immigration has mainly come out of the
Republican Party’s recent introspection, and the realization by its more thoughtful members, such as Sen. Marco
Rubio of Florida and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, that without such a shift the party may be facing demographic
death in a country where the 2010 census showed, for the first time, that white births have fallen into the minority. It’s
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got nothing to do with Obama’s political capital or, indeed, Obama at all.¶ The point is not that “political capital” is a
meaningless term. Often it is a synonym for “mandate” or “momentum” in the aftermath of a decisive election—and
just about every politician ever elected has tried to claim more of a mandate than he actually has. Certainly, Obama
can say that because he was elected and Romney wasn’t, he has a better claim on the country’s mood and direction.
Many pundits still defend political capital as a useful metaphor at least. “It’s an unquantifiable but meaningful
concept,” says Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. “You can’t really look at a president and say
he’s got 37 ounces of political capital. But the fact is, it’s a concept that matters, if you have popularity and some
momentum on your side.”¶ The real problem is that the idea of political capital—or mandates, or momentum—is so
poorly defined that presidents and pundits often get it wrong. “Presidents usually over-estimate it,” says George
Edwards, a presidential scholar at Texas A&M University. “The best kind of political capital—some sense of an
electoral mandate to do something—is very rare. It almost never happens. In 1964, maybe. And to some degree in
1980.” For that reason, political capital is a concept that misleads far more than it enlightens. It is distortionary. It
conveys the idea that we know more than we really do about the ever-elusive concept of political power, and it
discounts the way unforeseen events can suddenly change everything. Instead, it suggests, erroneously, that a
political figure has a concrete amount of political capital to invest, just as someone might have real investment
capital—that a particular leader can bank his gains, and the size of his account determines what he can do at any
given moment in history.¶ Naturally, any president has practical and electoral limits. Does he have a majority in both
chambers of Congress and a cohesive coalition behind him? Obama has neither at present. And unless a surge in
the economy—at the moment, still stuck—or some other great victory gives him more momentum, it is inevitable that
the closer Obama gets to the 2014 election, the less he will be able to get done. Going into the midterms,
Republicans will increasingly avoid any concessions that make him (and the Democrats) stronger.
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Political Capital Isn’t Key
House breaking up the bill proves – its all about House desire
Klein 6 – 5 – 13 Washington Post political insider [Ezra Klein, The House won’t have a bipartisan
immigration bill. That’s (maybe) okay., http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/05/the-housewont-have-a-bipartisan-immigration-bill-thats-maybe-okay/]
Under this theory, anything that keeps the process moving in the House is a good thing. That means the break-up of
the bipartisan House group might be a good thing. Whatever came out of the bipartisan group was likely to fail in the
broader House. Either it would be too liberal for the Republicans or too conservative for the Democrats. And once it
failed, there’d be no replacement. Everyone’s political capital would already be used up.¶ Letting Republicans break
the bill into pieces makes it likelier that some of those pieces will pass. It also makes it easier for Republicans to vent
their anger against certain parts of immigration reform — like the path to citizenship — without imperiling the whole
bill. It makes it likelier that something, anything, passes the House.¶ This theory has some clear problems. It
assumes success in the Senate. It assumes that House Republicans will fold before the Senate. It assumes Boehner
will waive the Hastert rule and permit a vote on a bill many in his caucus don’t support. Any and all of these
assumptions could be wrong. But they’re necessary assumptions for any and all paths to success on the bill,
including those that run through a bipartisan House proposal. That law, too, would be closer to what the Senate
wants than to what House Republicans want, and that law, too, would require Democratic votes.¶ In the end, this
really does come down to the House Republican leadership. If they want to pass this thing, there are ways to pass it.
If they’re willing to accept failure, then that’s what they’ll get.
Focus on Obama helps immigration pass
Bloomberg 5 – 23 – 13 [Obama Probes Create Immigration Magic as Bill Advances,
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-23/obama-probes-create-immigration-magic-as-bill-advances.html]
The trio of investigations causing headaches for President Barack Obama’s administration has also provided a
honeymoon period for the marquee element of his domestic agenda: revising immigration laws.¶ The congressional
probes into various government agencies diverted attention at a critical time, allowing the Senate Judiciary
Committee a respite from the spotlight as it reached critical compromises on the measure and approved it on a
bipartisan 13-5 vote on May 21. The bill would allow the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. without
authorization a chance at citizenship.¶ “It’s like magic -- you distract the audience while the real trick is being done -and I think right now, while Americans focus on President Obama’s unending difficulties, it’s good news for the Gang
of Eight working on immigration,” said Republican strategist Alex Castellanos, referring to the four Republicans and
four Democrats who crafted the bill.¶ The dynamic is probably fleeting; the immigration measure’s path is likely to
become more treacherous as the scandal investigations persist in grabbing headlines, the legislation moves toward a
high-profile Senate vote next month, and skeptical House Republicans have their say.¶ That debate will take place
while Congress is still raising questions about allegations that the Internal Revenue Service targeted anti-tax groups
for scrutiny, the Justice Department seized Associated Press telephone records in a leak investigation, and the State
Department initially glossed over the seriousness of last September’s attack on consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that left
four Americans dead.
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Criticism of Obama won’t derail immigration – recent events prove
Bloomberg 5 – 23 – 13 [Obama Probes Create Immigration Magic as Bill Advances,
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-23/obama-probes-create-immigration-magic-as-bill-advances.html]
Republican Criticism¶ Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, another of the eight senators who teamed to write the bill, has
used several television interviews, speeches on the Senate floor and his Twitter social media account to express
outrage at the Obama administration over the Benghazi and IRS cases.¶ Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina
Republican and Gang of Eight participant, also has been among the most outspoken critics of the administration’s
handling of the Benghazi attack.¶ “Walking and chewing gum at the same time is something that is a lost art in
politics,” Graham said in an interview. “Investigating the administration about IRS and Benghazi is very important.
Passing immigration reform is very important. We can do both.”
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Winners Win
Winners-win. Obama needs one for his agenda
THE HILL 3 – 20 – 13 [Amie Parnes and Justin Sink, Obama honeymoon may be over,
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/289179-obama-honeymoon-may-be-over]
The second-term honeymoon for President Obama is beginning to look like it is over.¶ Obama, who was riding high
after his reelection win in November, has seen his poll numbers take a precipitous fall in recent weeks. ¶ A CNN poll
released Tuesday showed Obama’s favorability rating underwater, with 47 percent approving and 50 percent
disapproving of Obama’s handling of his job. ¶ Much of the president’s agenda is stuck, with climate change
regulations delayed, immigration reform mired in committee negotiations and prospects for a grand bargain budget
deal in limbo at best. ¶ On Tuesday, in a decision that underscored Obama’s depleting political capital, the White
House watched as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced only a watered-down version of Obama’s
gun control proposals would be considered on the Senate floor. ¶ Republicans, sensing the sea change, are licking
their chops. They point to the lack of movement on Obama’s signature issues, noting the contrast to the ambitious
plans outlined in the early weeks of his second term.¶ “The president set very high goals for himself during his State
of the Union, but the reality is very little of his agenda is actually moving,” Republican strategist Ron Bonjean said.
“He allowed himself to get caught up in the legislative quicksand, [and] the cement is beginning to harden. “¶ History
isn’t on Obama’s side. ¶ The last four presidents who won a second term all saw their poll numbers slide by midMarch with the exception of Bill Clinton, whose numbers improved in the four months following his reelection.¶
Clinton may have only been delaying the inevitable. His numbers dropped 5 points in April 1994. Even Ronald
Reagan, buoyed by a dominant performance over Walter Mondale in the 1984 election, saw a double-digit erosion by
this point in his second term.¶ Obama has yet to complete the first 100 days of his second term. But without a
signature achievement since his reelection, he faces a crossroads that could define the remainder of his presidency.
¶ White House aides maintain that the 24-hour news cycle makes comparisons to previous presidents difficult.¶ “I
think the nature of our politics now is different than Ronald Reagan’s honeymoon,” one senior administration official
said. “The ebb and flow of politics doesn’t follow that model anymore.”¶ But observers say a drop in popularity is
typical for second-termers.¶ “There may be some typical second-term honeymoon fade happening,” said Martin
Sweet, an assistant visiting professor of political science at Northwestern University. “Honeymoon periods for
incumbents are a bit more ephemeral.”¶ But like most other presidents, Sweet added, “Obama’s fate is tied to the
economy.”¶ “Continuing economic progress would ultimately strengthen the president but if we are hit with a doubledip recession, then Obama’s numbers will crater,” he said.¶ The White House disputes any notion that Obama has
lost any political capital in recent weeks.¶ “The president set out an ambitious agenda and he’s doing big things that
are not easy, from immigration to gun control,” the senior administration official said. “Those are policies you can’t
rack up easily, and no one here is naive about that.Ӧ The White House is aware that the clock is ticking to push its
hefty agenda, but the official added, “The clock is not ticking because of president’s political capital. The clock is
ticking because there’s a timetable in achieving all of this. [Lawmakers] are not going to sign on because the
president’s popular.” ¶ And administration officials believe they still have the leverage.¶ “There’s a decent amount of
momentum behind all of this,” the official said. “It looks like immigration is closer [to passage] than ever before.”¶
Republican strategist Ken Lundberg argued that current budget fights “have cut short the president’s second-term
honeymoon.” ¶ He said this could also hurt the president’s party, warning “the lower the president’s approval rating,
the bigger the consequence for vulnerable Democrats.”¶ “Voters want solutions, and if they see the president headed
down the wrong path, lockstep lawmakers will be punished in 2014,” he said.¶ Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis
maintained that as long as he’s president, Obama still has the leverage.¶ “Immigration reform doesn’t get impacted
by whether Obama’s poll numbers are 55 or 45,” Kofinis said. “Does it make certain things a little more difficult?
Possibly. But while his numbers may have fallen, he’s still more likeable than the Republicans are on their best
day.”¶ Kofinis said the real question for Obama is what kind of emphasis he’s going to place on his second term
because the public will have less patience than they did during his first.¶ “The challenge in a second term is the
American people look at certain things and have a higher tolerance in a second term,” he said. “When they know
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you’re not running for reelection again, they hold you to a higher standard.” ¶ Bonjean and other Republicans are
aware that Obama could potentially bounce back from his latest slip in the polls and regain his footing.¶ “He has the
opportunity to take minor legislative victories and blow them up into major accomplishments – meaning if he got
something on gun control, he can tout that that was part of his agenda and the work isn’t over. If he were able to
strike a grand bargain with Republicans, that’d be a legacy issue.”¶ Still, Bonjean added, “It’s not looking so good
right now.”
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Obama’s capital is declining because he doesn’t have a win
THE HILL 3 – 20 – 13 [Amie Parnes and Justin Sink, Obama honeymoon may be over,
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/289179-obama-honeymoon-may-be-over]
Obama has yet to complete the first 100 days of his second term. But without a signature achievement since his
reelection, he faces a crossroads that could define the remainder of his presidency. ¶ White House aides maintain
that the 24-hour news cycle makes comparisons to previous presidents difficult.¶ “I think the nature of our politics now
is different than Ronald Reagan’s honeymoon,” one senior administration official said. “The ebb and flow of politics
doesn’t follow that model anymore.”¶ But observers say a drop in popularity is typical for second-termers.¶ “There may
be some typical second-term honeymoon fade happening,” said Martin Sweet, an assistant visiting professor of
political science at Northwestern University. “Honeymoon periods for incumbents are a bit more ephemeral.”¶ But like
most other presidents, Sweet added, “Obama’s fate is tied to the economy.”
Needs Wins – breeds party optimism
THE HILL 3 – 26 – 13 http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/290249-after-taking-hit-in-the-polls-obamapivots-back-to-immigration
*Devine - a former strategist to Secretary of State John Kerry and former Vice President Gore
Democrats are worried that Obama hasn't had a lot of signing ceremonies in 2013 as unresolved budget battles
have hit the president's approval ratings. Obama's healthy post-election advantage on the economy has dwindled
into a virtual tie with congressional Republicans. Voters equally blame Obama and the GOP for the sequester, which
is expected to hit in full force in the coming weeks. “It goes back to a sense in Washington that things aren't getting
done,” Devine said. “No matter whose fault that is, when you're president, the buck stops here.”
Winners-win – gets moderates on board
RCP 3 – 11 – 13 [Caitlin Huey-Burns, Is the GOP Finally Winning?,
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/03/11/is_the_gop_finally_winning_117363.html]
The president is going around House Republicans and courting their colleagues in the Senate. Over the past week,
Obama has phoned and dined with several GOP senators, hoping to strike a deal.¶ “The White House is trying
anything they can to win right now,” said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, a member of the GOP leadership. “I think
the president sort of got on the wrong side of this whole issue with the sequester by going out and using the scare
tactics, and I think that’s kind of bit him.”¶ The president’s shift in tone rests better with the public, which is holding him
accountable, a top Democratic aide said. “It is better when he looks like he’s getting stuff done,” the aide explained.
“He’s reaching out and working with Republicans and trying to get something done rather than just trying to talk about
the bad things that are going to happen.”¶ Many rank and file Republicans in the Senate welcome the president’s
outreach and are open to a grand bargain on deficit reduction. But they are also working to impel the president on
entitlements.
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They Say: CIR Solves Economy
Impossible to predict the economic benefits
Khimm, 13 (Suzy, “How much will immigration reform cost?,” February 1st, 2013,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/01/how-much-will-immigration-reform-cost/)
There’s a lot of evidence pointing to the economic benefits of adding more legal immigrants to the economy. What’s
less clear is how much a comprehensive immigration overhaul would affect the federal budget.¶ While more legal
immigrants could cost taxpayers more in health care, education, and other social services, they would also contribute
more tax revenues. Ultimately, there will be a lot of political pressure to produce a reform that costs as little as
possible, possibly even reducing the deficit in the long term.¶ In 2007, the Congressional Budget Office concluded
that the Senate’s proposed bipartisan immigration reform would increase the deficit by about $18 billion over 10
years, but would have “a relatively small net effect” on the deficit over 20 years.¶ Here’s how that number breaks
down: Direct federal spending on immigrants would cost $23 billion over 10 years, mostly because of Medicaid and
refundable tax credits. At the same time, the overhaul would generate $48 billion in new revenue, mostly through
increased Social Security taxes.¶ So under the 2007 overhaul, newly legal immigrants would have generated far
more revenue than they take in from the government. It’s partly because most undocumented immigrants are working
age and wouldn’t immediately incur major Social Security and Medicare costs. It’s also because the 2007 bill required
immigrants to pay back taxes and forced them to wait for years before receiving federal benefits.¶ However, the
process of implementing reform itself — setting up a legalization process, new enforcement measures, and so forth
— carries its own price tag, of $43 billion over 10 years. So ultimately, CBO estimated that the total cost of the 2007
immigration overhaul was $18 billion.¶ How would the math work out now? Since neither Congress nor the White
House has actually put out a bill, it’s not clear. But there are a few things that we do know: Obamacare expanded
federal health insurance, and an estimated 7 million undocumented immigrants might theoretically qualify for
coverage under its provisions, as my colleague Sarah Kliff explains.¶ That could add to the cost of immigration
reform, depending on how many ultimately became legal citizens and how long they would have to wait to receive
benefits. (Both the White House and the Senate gang agree that undocumented immigrants with provisional legal
status wouldn’t qualify for benefits.) At the same time, it could also introduce a large number of younger, healthier
people into insurance pools, which could potentially reduce overall insurance costs, says Michael Fix, senior vicepresident of the Migration Policy Institute. ”The jury is still really out.”¶ It’s also unclear what the cost of
implementation will be: As I’ve reported earlier, we’ve already hit most of the 2007 targets for border security, at the
cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. And the Senate Gang of Eight’s plan is vague about what “securing our
border” will really mean this time around. Most of the security reforms involve more use of technology, rather than
personnel, but the government already has a track record of investing into tech-driven boondoggles in the name of
border security.¶ So the price tag of immigration reform will really depend on legislative debate that Congress has
begun to wade into. There will be a lot of pressure on Congress to produce a bill that’s either revenue-neutral or will
actually reduce the deficit, both by restricting any federal spending on immigrants and limiting the upfront
appropriations on implementation.
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CIR doesn’t solve the economy – trades of with native jobs and will use welfare programs
more than they provide in job creation
Ruark and Graham 11 [Eric Ruark and Matthew Graham – Directors of Research at the Federation for
American Immigration Reform, “Immigration, Poverty and Low-Wage Earners the Harmful effect of Unskilled
immigrants on American Workers”, May 2011, http://www.fairus.org/docs/poverty_rev.pdf]
Current calls for “comprehensive immigration reform” are nothing short of a push for a massive amnesty that would
give permanent status to millions of illegal aliens who are not needed in the workforce, and it would reward
unscrupulous employers who profited from hiring illegal workers, providing them with a legal low-wage workforce that
would continue to have a negative impact on native workers. The border is not secured and there is much opposition
to the mandatory use of E-Verify and interior enforcement. Those who argue against enforcement are not going to
decide overnight to support these measures, and politicians have long ago proven that their promise to enforce
immigration laws after granting amnesty are not to be believed. This report contains the following findings: • In 2009,
less than 6 percent of legal immigrants were admitted because they possessed skills deemed essential to the U.S.
economy. • Studies that find minimal or no negative effects on native workers from low-skill immigration are based
upon lawed assumptions and skewed economic models, not upon observations of actual labor market conditions. •
There is no such thing as an “immigrant job.” The reality is that immigrants and natives compete for the same jobs
and native workers are increasingly at a disadvantage because employers have access to a steady supply of lowwage foreign workers. • Low-skilled immigrants are more likely than their native-born counterparts to live in poverty,
lack health insurance, and to utilize welfare programs. Immigrants and their children made up 32 percent of those in
the United States without health insurance in 2009. • Research done by the Center for American Progress has found
that reducing the illegal alien population in the United States by one-third would raise the income of unskilled workers
by $400 a year. • Defenders of illegal immigration often tout the findings of the so-called Perryman Report to argue
that illegal aliens are responsible for job creation in the United States; yet, if one accepts the Perryman findings as
true, that would mean that only one job is created in the United States for every three illegal workers in the workforce.
• It is true that if the illegal alien population decreased the overall number of jobs in the U.S. would be reduced, but
there would be many more jobs available to native workers –jobs that paid higher wages and offered better working
conditions
Immigration will burden state governments—bill doesn’t address those problems
Davidson, 13 (Adam, February 12th, 2013, “Do Illegal Immigrants Actually Hurt the U.S. Economy?,”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/magazine/do-illegal-immigrants-actually-hurt-the-useconomy.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0)
The problem, though, is that undocumented workers are not evenly distributed. In areas like southern Texas and
Arizona and even parts of Brooklyn, undocumented immigrants impose a substantial net cost to local and state
governments, Shierholz says. Immigrants use public assistance, medical care and schools. Some immigrant
neighborhoods have particularly high crime rates. Jared Bernstein, a fellow at the Center for Budget and Policy
Priorities, told me that these are also areas in which low-educated workers are most likely to face stiff competition
from immigrants. It’s no wonder why so much political furor comes from these regions. ¶ Undocumented workers
represent a classic economic challenge with a fairly straightforward solution. Immigrants bring diffuse and hard-tosee benefits to average Americans while imposing more tangible costs on a few, Shierholz says. The dollar value of
the benefits far outweigh the costs, so the government could just transfer extra funds to those local populations that
need more help. One common proposal would grant amnesty to undocumented workers, which would create a
sudden increase in tax payments. Simultaneously, the federal government could apply a percentage of those
increased revenues to local governments. ¶ But that, of course, seems politically improbable. Immigration is one of
many problems — like another economic no-brainer: eliminating farm subsidies — in which broad economic benefits
battle against a smaller, concentrated cost in one area. As immigration reform seems more likely than at any time in
recent memory, it’s important to remember that it is not the economic realities that have changed. It’s the political
ones.
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Deficits have no impact on the US or global economy
STIGLITZ 12 University Professor at Columbia University, and a Nobel laureate in
Economics [Joseph E. Stiglitz, Stimulating the Economy in an Era of Debt and Deficit, The Economists’ Voice
http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/ev March, 2012]
The first priority of the country should be a return to full employment. The underemployment of labor is a massive
waste and, more than anything else, jeopardizes our country’s future, as the skills of our young get wasted and
alienation grows. As the work of Jayadev5 as well as the IMF6 convincingly shows, austerity in America will almost
surely weaken growth. Moreover, as the work of Ferguson and Johnson7 shows, we should view with suspicion the
claim (e.g. by Rogoff and Reinhardt) that exceeding a certain a debt-to-GDP ratio will trigger a crash. Even if this
notion were true on average, the U.S. is not an average country. It is a reserve currency country, with markets
responding to global instability—even when caused by the U.S.—by lowering interest rates. The U.S. has managed
even bigger deficits. Unlike the countries of Europe, there is no risk that we will not pay what we owe. To put it
bluntly, we promise to repay dollars, and we control the printing presses. But a focus on the ratio of debt-to-GDP is
simply economic nonsense. No one would judge a firm by looking at its debt alone. Anyone claiming economic
expertise would want to look at the balance sheet—assets as well as liabilities. Borrowing to invest is different from
borrowing for consumption. The failure of the deficit hawks to realize this is consistent with my earlier conclusion that
this debate is not about the size of the deficit, but about the size of the government and the progressivity of the tax
system.
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They Say: Econ Decline  War
Economic decline doesn’t cause war
Tir 10 Ph.D. in Political Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is an Associate Professor in the
Department of International Affairs at the University of Georgia [Jaroslav Tir, “Territorial Diversion: Diversionary
Theory of War and Territorial Conflict”, The Journal of Politics, 2010, Volume 72: 413-425)]
Empirical support for the economic growth rate is much weaker. The finding that poor economic performance is
associated with a higher likelihood of territorial conflict initiation is significant only in Models 3–4.14 The weak results
are not altogether surprising given the findings from prior literature. In accordance with the insignificant relationships
of Models 1–2 and 5–6, Ostrom and Job (1986), for example, note that the likelihood that a U.S. President will use
force is uncertain, as the bad economy might create incentives both to divert the public’s attention with a foreign
adventure and to focus on solving the economic problem, thus reducing the inclination to act abroad. Similarly,
Fordham (1998a, 1998b), DeRouen (1995), and Gowa (1998) find no relation between a poor economy and U.S. use
of force. Furthermore, Leeds and Davis (1997) conclude that the conflict-initiating behavior of 18 industrialized
democracies is unrelated to economic conditions as do Pickering and Kisangani (2005) and Russett and Oneal
(2001) in global studies. In contrast and more in line with my findings of a significant relationship (in Models 3–4),
Hess and Orphanides (1995), for example, argue that economic recessions are linked with forceful action by an
incumbent U.S. president. Furthermore, Fordham’s (2002) revision of Gowa’s (1998) analysis shows some effect of a
bad economy and DeRouen and Peake (2002) report that U.S. use of force diverts the public’s attention from a poor
economy. Among cross-national studies, Oneal and Russett (1997) report that slow growth increases the incidence
of militarized disputes, as does Russett (1990)—but only for the United States; slow growth does not affect the
behavior of other countries. Kisangani and Pickering (2007) report some significant associations, but they are
sensitive to model specification, while Tir and Jasinski (2008) find a clearer link between economic
underperformance and increased attacks on domestic ethnic minorities. While none of these works has focused on
territorial diversions, my own inconsistent findings for economic growth fit well with the mixed results reported in the
literature.15 Hypothesis 1 thus receives strong support via the unpopularity variable but only weak support via the
economic growth variable. These results suggest that embattled leaders are much more likely to respond with
territorial diversions to direct signs of their unpopularity (e.g., strikes, protests, riots) than to general background
conditions such as economic malaise. Presumably, protesters can be distracted via territorial diversions while fixing
the economy would take a more concerted and prolonged policy effort. Bad economic conditions seem to motivate
only the most serious, fatal territorial confrontations. This implies that leaders may be reserving the most high-profile
and risky diversions for the times when they are the most desperate, that is when their power is threatened both by
signs of discontent with their rule and by more systemic problems plaguing the country (i.e., an underperforming
economy).