Immigration Surveillance Affirmative
RIUDL
Novice Division
Immigration Surveillance Affirmative – Table of Contents
Summary.............................................................................................................................................. 2
Picture Glossary ................................................................................................................................. 3
First Affirmative Constructive (1AC) ................................................................................................ 6
Answers to Negative Attacks:
Answers To: Decreasing Deportations Now........................................................................................ 11
Answers To: ICE Re-prioritizing Deportations Now ............................................................................. 12
Answers To: Reducing Violations – Federal Oversight ....................................................................... 13
Answers To: Reducing Violations – Medical Care .............................................................................. 14
Answers To: Security Should be Prioritized Over Rights .................................................................... 15
Answers To: Plan Can’t Solve – Inefficient Systems........................................................................... 16
Answers To: Plan Can’t Solve – States Will Continue to Exclude ....................................................... 17
Answers To: Plan Causes Increased Smuggling ................................................................................ 18
Answers To: Plan Causes Violent Militias ........................................................................................... 19
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Immigration Surveillance Affirmative
RIUDL
Novice Division
Summary
The Immigration Surveillance Affirmative seeks the end the surveillance of millions of undocumented
immigrants in the United States. Currently, federal immigration officials and local law enforcement
agencies track down undocumented immigrants because they have violated the law by staying in the
country illegally. The issue is that many of these undocumented immigrants have already lived in the
country for a long period of time, contribute to the economy through employment and paying taxes,
and have children who are citizens.
Despite the benefit that immigration brings to the United States, the Obama administration (following
in the footsteps of the Bush administration) has attempted to increase the number of undocumented
individuals deported each year and has done so using advanced surveillance techniques and tactics.
Thus, the affirmative tries to reverse this trend of deportation by ending the surveillance programs
that are used to track down undocumented immigrants. The plan claims two different improvements
over the current system.
The case argues that the federal government is currently violating the rights of people by using
surveillance to track them down and deport them. Individuals who are tracked down and deported
often have little access to legal resources and are treated in gross and unethical ways. Human rights
activist have found that some people have been detained and left in prisons with horrible conditions,
others have been deported even though they are actually citizens! The affirmative is able to solve for
this by ending the surveillance programs that lead to the deportation of undocumented immigrants.
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Immigration Surveillance Affirmative
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Novice Division
Picture Glossary
Department of Homeland Security (DHS): Is an
agency of the United States federal government that
was formed in 2002 from the combination of 22
departments and agencies. The agency is charge of
various task related to making the United States
homeland safe including customs, border, and
immigration enforcement; emergency response to
natural and manmade disasters; antiterrorism work;
and cyber security.
U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE): is an agency within the Department of
Homeland Security that enforces federal laws
governing border control, customs, trade and
immigration to promote homeland security and
public safety.
U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services
(U.S.C.I.S): The U.S Citizenship and Immigration
Services is responsible for processing immigration
and naturalization applications and establishing
policies regarding immigration services.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (C.B.P):
Customs and Border Protection prevents people from
entering the country illegally, or bringing anything
harmful or illegal into the United States.
Secure Communities Program: is a program of the
U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
that uses information shared between the ICE, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and local law
enforcement agencies to find whether individuals
who have a criminal record have also violated
immigration law by entering the United States
illegally.
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Immigration Surveillance Affirmative
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Novice Division
Non-governmental organizations (NGO): an
organization that is not a part of the government. For
example, Doctors Without Borders is an NGO.
Undocumented Immigrant: refers to a foreign
nationals residing in the U.S. without legal
immigration status. It includes persons who entered
the U.S without inspection and proper permission
from the U.S government, and those who entered
with a legal visa that is no longer valid.
Undocumented immigrants are also known as
unauthorized or illegal immigrants.
Border Patrol: is the agency in charge of watching
and monitoring the border in order to prevent people
from entering the United States illegally.
Immigrants Detention Center: is a facility used by
the federal government to house undocumented
immigrants who have been detained and subject to
deportation.
Consular Consolidated Database (CCD): is a
database used by U.S consular officials that records
data from visa applications such as photographs and
democratic information of applicants.
Deportation
Deportation is the forceful removal of foreigners or
illegal immigrants from a country. Often times for
example countries like the U.S. will send foreigners
back to the country they originated from, other times
they will send them to any accessible country.
The U.S. deported 438,421 unauthorized immigrants
in 2013.
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Immigration Surveillance Affirmative
RIUDL
Novice Division
Immigration Surveillance
The U.S. uses immigration surveillance to detect
which foreigners are crossing the border into the
U.S. Types of immigration surveillance are drones,
radar systems, and the ICE (Immigration and
Customs Enforcement) program which uses
information between ICE and the FBI to find out if
immigrants have also committed crimes.
Human Rights
Human Rights are rights that everyone is born with,
for example the right to privacy. The affirmative
argues that immigration surveillance and the lack of
an effective immigration reform allows more than 11
million people to be in a state of poverty and be
exposed to crime.
Important Laws/ Court Decisions Immigration
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act of 1996: This law outlined the
issues regarding immigrants from giving out visas, to
the administration of border control agents.
Homeland Security Act of 2002: After the Sept 11
attacks the Bush administration established the
Department of Homeland Security which oversees
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, and United
States Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Arizona v. United States: In this case the courts
decided that Arizona could not make its own
immigration laws for example make it a crime be in
the state without legal papers. This allows the federal
government greater power in making laws on
immigration.
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Immigration Surveillance Affirmative
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Novice Division
1AC (1/5)
First, we will explain the problem that exists right now:
The deportation of unauthorized migrants without a criminal record is still increasing despite
improvements in the deportation selection process.
Barrera and Krogstad, researchers at the Pew Research Center, explain in 2014 that…
(Ana Gonzalez-Barrera and Jens Manuel Krogstad, U.S. deportations of immigrants reach record
high in 2013, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/02/u-s-deportations-of-immigrants-reachrecord-high-in-2013/)
The Obama administration deported a record 438,421 unauthorized immigrants in fiscal year
2013, continuing a streak of stepped up enforcement that has resulted in more than 2 million
deportations since Obama took office, newly released Department of Homeland Security data
show. President Obama today is scheduled to address members of the Congressional Hispanic
Caucus, a group that has recently criticized the president on immigration. Last month, the caucus
urged the president to take executive action on immigration by extending deportation relief to certain
groups of unauthorized immigrants, such as parents of U.S.-born children. Some immigrant
advocates have dubbed Obama the “deporter in chief” over the fact that his administration has
deported about as many immigrants in five years as the George W. Bush administration
deported in eight years. During his speech, Obama is expected to reiterate his pledge to make
changes to immigration policy on his own, something he said he will do after the November
midterm elections.
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Immigration Surveillance Affirmative
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Novice Division
1AC (2/5)
Next, we will explain the harmful impacts of the current policy of deportation.
First, the current immigration policy causes over 11 million people to live in constant fear of
deportation that destroys social cohesion, throws children into poverty, and causes
psychological trauma.
The Immigration Policy Center explained in 2008 that…
(Immigration Enforcement and Its Unintended Consequences, Mon, Mar 31, 2008,
http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/just-facts/immigration-enforcement-and-its-unintendedconsequences)
The number of very young children affected by worksite raids is alarmingly high. On average, the
number of children affected by worksite raids is about half the number of adults arrested. Over
900 adults were arrested in the three study sites, and the parents among them collectively had just
over 500 children. A large majority of the children affected are U.S. citizens. Nationwide, there are
approximately five million U.S.-citizen children with at least one undocumented parent, and policies
that target their parents have grave effects on the children. The children included in the report were
very young. In two of the sites, approximately 80 percent were ages ten and younger. In one
site, more than half were ages five and younger. The raids resulted in immediate needs for
childcare and basic services. Many arrested parents were unable to arrange for alternative
childcare because they had limited ability to communicate with family members. Some were not able
to make phone calls, some were held in detention centers far from their homes, and others signed
voluntary departure papers and left the country before they could contact lawyers or caregivers.
Informal family and community networks took on significant caregiving responsibilities and economic
support of children. Many families faced severe economic instability as their incomes plunged
following the arrest of working adults. In all three sites, school districts played an important role in
ensuring that children were not dropped off to empty homes or left at school overnight. However,
some children were left without adult supervision, and others were taken into foster care. The
raids had a long-term economic and psychological impact on families. Many families continued to
experience significant economic hardship and psychological stress because of the arrests
and separations, as well as from the uncertainty of knowing if or when an arrested parent
would be released. Following the arrest of a parent, children often experience feelings of
abandonment and show symptoms of emotional trauma, psychological duress, and mental
health problems. However, due to cultural reasons and fear of the negative consequences of
asking for assistance, very few affected families seek mental health care.
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Immigration Surveillance Affirmative
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1AC (3/5)
Second, immigration surveillance causes a laundry list of impacts including racial
discrimination, the worsening of crime and public safety, sexual assault, and thousands of
deaths.
The Human Rights Immigrant Community Action Network said in 2010 that…
(Injustice for All: The Rise of the U.S. Immigration Policing Regime, The National Network for
Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) works to defend and expand the rights of all immigrants and
refugees, regardless of immigration status, http://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/nnir.pdf)
Police collusion with ICE undermines community safety. Residents will not report crimes and
fires if they fear detection and deportation. Women are less likely to report domestic violence
if they or their partners have immigration status. Batterers are also more likely to threaten their
partners with turning them over to ICE to stop them from reporting an abusive relationship. s Equally
troubling, local law enforcement is not trained in immigration law and requires substantial amounts of
time and money to reach a satisfactory level of expertise. As a result, local police departments,
already strapped on resources and manpower, cut back other vital community services,
affecting community safety; and police cooperation with ICE encourages racial profiling,
already illegal, resulting in civil rights violations and abuses against immigrant and refugee
communities. Even where police departments have worked to end racial profiling, such collaboration
undermines the credibility of police departments to effectively serve all communities. In some states
and localities, local police and sheriffs can ask individuals for proof of their immigration status—and
turn them over to DHS officials—simply based on their perceived status as undocumented
immigrants.xiii These practices have fueled racial profiling and other forms of discrimination.xiv The
Western North Carolina 100 Stories Project reports specific cases where local and county police
deliberately used transit stops to arrest a Latino driver to turn over to ICE; see their report on page
16. Immigration laws and policing have created an anti-immigrant atmosphere in which some
county hospitals, schools, and other public agencies as well as private citizens, including landlords,
employers, and even border vigilantes, have been emboldened to take the “law” into their own
hands—attempting to detect, report, and even detain undocumented immigrants in their
communities.
Thus, my partner and I present the following plan:
The United States federal government should substantially curtail its domestic surveillance by
ending its surveillance of undocumented immigrants intended for deportation.
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Immigration Surveillance Affirmative
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Novice Division
1AC (4/5)
Finally, we will explain why ending the surveillance of undocumented immigrants will solve
these problems.
First, ending immigration surveillance ends the process that plays a crucial role in
immigration control.
Kalhan, an Associate Professor of Law at Drexel University, said in 2014 that…
(IMMIGRATION SURVEILLANCE, 74 Md. L. Rev. 1 (2014),
http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/mlr/vol74/iss1/2)
These four sets of migration and mobility surveillance functions— identification, screening and
authorization, mobility tracking and control, and information sharing—play crucial but
underappreciated roles in immigration control processes across the entire spectrum of migration
and travel. In the growing number of contexts in which immigration control activities now take place,
enforcement actors engage in extensive collection, storage, analysis, and dissemination of
personal information, in order to identify individuals, screen them and authorize their activities,
enable monitoring and control over their travel, and share information with other actors who bear
immigration control responsibilities. Initially deployed for traditional immigration enforcement
purposes, and expanded largely in the name of security, these surveillance technologies and
processes are qualitatively remaking the nature of immigration governance, as a number of examples
illustrate. 1. Border Control Despite implementation challenges, Congress and DHS have placed
new surveillance technologies at the heart of border control strategies.
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Immigration Surveillance Affirmative
RIUDL
Novice Division
1AC (5/5)
Second, suspending surveillance for deportation can immediately halt human rights abuses
and bring security to millions of immigrants.
The Human Rights Immigrant Community Action Network contended in 2010 that…
(Injustice for All: The Rise of the U.S. Immigration Policing Regime, The National Network for
Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) works to defend and expand the rights of all immigrants and
refugees, regardless of immigration status, http://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/nnir.pdf)
RECOMMENDATIONS Injustice for All urges the U.S. government to undertake a major shift in
immigration policies and address the patterns of human and civil rights violations. The U.S. must
provide access to the adjustment of immigration status, a process long held at bay by a lack of
political will and action at the federal level. Without such a shift, millions of men, women and
children residing in this country will continue to face lives of fear, uncertainty and economic
insecurity. There are significant steps that the Obama Administration can authorize, including:
The restoration of due process rights and other Constitutional protections, including access to the
courts; The suspension of detentions and deportations, other ICE enforcement operations and
high profile raids; a high-level investigation and hearings with impacted communities; An end to the
policy and practice of jailing persons solely for immigration status offenses, except in cases
where there is a high risk to public safety; The prohibition of ICE and local, county, state and federal
law enforcement from using all forms of racial, ethnic/nationality and religious profiling; A thorough
investigation of complaints of abuses in public and private corporate immigrant detention centers and
jails; a moratorium on the expansion of detention centers and privately run prisons; An end to all interagency and immigration-police collaboration programs; Prohibition of local, county, and state
governments from legislating immigration enforcement, such as Arizona’s SB1070; The roll back and
end to the militarization of immigration control and border communities; end Operation Stonegarden
and Operation Streamline. iv Finally, disturbed by the lack of congressional action to enact fair
immigration policies, and on our elected officials in the House and Senate to: Hold field hearings with
members of interior and border communities to document the impacts and abuses caused by U.S.
immigration policing and border security policies, measures and practices; Repeal employer
sanctions and stop all E-Verify programs; protect and expand the labor rights of all workers, native
and foreign-born; and increase Department of Labor inspectors; Repeal the 287(g) and “Secure
Communities” initiatives; Provide and expand options to legal migration, including access to legal
permanent residency and citizenship; Institute routine programs, including legalization, to adjust the
immigration status and provide “green cards” to immigrants, to ensure civil and labor rights, keep
families together and reinforce healthy communities. we call upon the Administration and
members of Congress: To address the root causes of displacement and involuntary migration,
by promoting and implementing fair trade and sustainable community development policies;
To help lead a nationwide condemnation of racial intolerance and xenophobia in keeping with
our country’s legal and moral commitment to equality for all. We further urge the United States
to respect and uphold international human and labor rights standards, including the ratification and
implementation of the U.N. International Convention for the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant
Workers and Members of Their Families and the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
People.
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Answers To: Decreasing Deportations Now
[__]
[__] The Obama administration’s actions have failed at reducing the deportation of
undocumented youth.
Merina, reporter at Southern California Public Radio, 2015
(Dorian Merina, Despite being given priority, migrant youth still face high rate of deportation in LA's
immigration courts, http://www.scpr.org/programs/take-two/2015/05/14/42823/despite-being-givenpriority-migrant-youth-still-f/)
Nine months after the Justice Department announced a policy to speed up cases for migrant
youth, more than half the juveniles in Los Angeles' immigration courts have nevertheless
been ordered deported, according to data obtained by KPCC. None were granted asylum. The
data, acquired through a Freedom of Information Act request from the Department of Justice, also
show that more than half of the migrant youth faced a judge without an attorney – the single
most important factor in determining the outcome, according to a 2014 study by Syracuse
University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. The FOIA data are from July 18, 2014,
through April 20, 2015, and cover 471 completed unaccompanied minor cases in the Los Angeles
jurisdiction. All of the children were processed through a priority docket, a designation that the
Justice Department made in 2014 in response to the surge of child migrants. Of those cases in
L.A., 287 juveniles were ordered removed. Nationwide, unaccompanied minors rose to 68,541 in
fiscal year 2014, prompting a debate over the workings of a complex and overwhelmed immigration
court system.
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Immigration Surveillance Affirmative
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Answers To: ICE Re-prioritizing Deportations Now
[__]
[__] ICE has not improved – it continues to deport innocent individuals without a proper
hearing.
American Immigration Council 2014
(Misplaced Priorities: Most Immigrants Deported by ICE in 2013 Were a Threat to No One,
http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/just-facts/misplaced-priorities-most-immigrants-deported-ice-2013were-threat-no-one)
As ICE’s own statistics make clear, the agency is involved primarily in the apprehension and
deportation of people who have committed immigration violations and minor crimes—not
terrorist operatives or violent criminals. But recognizing this is only the first step in understanding
the way ICE functions. The next step is to examine how ICE carries out deportations. For instance, in
FY 2013, 101,000 (or 27 percent) of the people whom ICE deported were summarily removed
from the country via an “order of expedited removal,” and 159,624 (43 percent) were removed
through a “reinstated final order of removal,” neither of which generally affords the deportee a
hearing in court. In other words, seven out of every ten deportees in FY 2013 never had the
opportunity to plead their cases before an immigration judge. Not only is ICE deporting people
who aren’t a threat, but it’s deporting many of them in ways that don’t respect the full range of
legal rights which form the basis of the U.S. criminal justice system.
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Answers To: Reducing Violations – Federal Oversight
[__]
[__] Even with changes to the ICE they have continued to monitor and deport undocumented
immigrants at an alarming rate.
Bernstein, NY Public Defender, 2013
(Joanna Zuckerman Bernstein, http://mic.com/articles/22258/immigration-reform-a-record-409-849deportations-happened-in-2012-a-clear-sign-we-need-change)
A few administrative changes announced before the New Year also indicate a shift toward reform,
although they were met with some skepticism. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said
that its “detainer” policy would now focus on undocumented people with prior criminal
convictions. An immigration detainer mandates that local law enforcement hold an undocumented
immigrant in custody until ICE decides whether to begin deportation proceedings. Advocates have
long considered this program deeply flawed, as it can result in deportation — and the separation of
families — for such low-level offenses as a traffic violation. ICE also announced that it would be
greatly reducing the 287(g) program, which authorized local police to question people about their
immigration status. While the changes were welcomed by advocates, their excitement was
tempered by ICE’s release — on the same day — of startling figures on deportations in 2012.
Last year, 409,849 people were deported — a new record. Moreover, advocates recognize that
these changes won’t necessarily mean less enforcement: for example, by reducing the 287(g)
program, ICE will simply be concentrating more on immigration enforcement in local jails. (In
fact, a report by the Migration Policy Institute released this week found that the U.S. government
spends more on immigration enforcement agencies than on the other main criminal law
enforcement agencies — including the FBI and the DEA — combined.)
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Immigration Surveillance Affirmative
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Novice Division
Answers To: Reducing Violations – Medical Care
[__]
[__] Despite reforms, current U.S immigration deportation and surveillance policies still
commit thousands of human rights abuses every year.
Constable, reporter for The Washington Post, 2014
(Pamela Constable, Human Rights Watch, in report on world abuses, criticizes U.S. immigration laws,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/human-rights-watch-in-report-on-world-abuses-criticizes-usimmigration-laws/2014/01/23/95c3ec6a-8459-11e3-9dd4-e7278db80d86_story.html)
Ginatta: We see the intersection between human rights and immigration policy to be varied and vast.
The status quo on immigration breeds human rights violation in so many circles. First we
highlight the importance of family unity. In the world of human rights, family is seen as the natural
and fundamental group that deserves protection, but [U.S.] immigration policy doesn’t focus
on family unity in the same respect. Immigration judges are not allowed to consider family
unity to the extent we think is needed to protect human rights. In the case of a very minor or very
old criminal conviction, family ties don’t matter. Even if someone has close U.S. citizen family
members, the removal still takes priority. We have documented situations where people who have
been outstanding members of society, with multiple U.S. citizen children, and who have lived
here for decades, still get deported. WP: What other kinds of immigration policies or practices
would you say fall into the category of human rights problems? Ginatta: One area is violations in the
workplace. Workers are incredibly vulnerable to exploitation because of their immigration
status. People working in dangerous industries may be afraid to report serious workplace violations
or women, such as farm workers, may be afraid to report sexual assaults, for fear they will be
reported to immigration authorities and deported. There is also the right to remedy. This is a key
human rights principle. You should have the right to access law enforcement, and policies that
create a fear or block between a person who witnesses a crime or is a victim of a crime and
the police are human rights violations. We have documented many situations where people are
afraid to contact the police because they fear a contact about a crime will become an inquiry into their
immigration status. WP: Do you see the deportation of illegal immigrants as a human rights abuse?
We are very worried about the growth of criminal prosecutions of illegal entrants into the U.S.. This is
a federal crime and now people who are trying to come into the U.S. to be reunited with their families
are facing federal prison time. These prosecutions have spiked to almost 100,000 a year. They
are changing the population within federal prisons. Immigration is becoming the most prosecuted
federal crime, and Latinos are becoming the number one ethnic group inside federal prisons
because of this.
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Immigration Surveillance Affirmative
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Novice Division
Answers To: Security Should be Prioritized Over Rights
[__]
[__] Cost/benefit logic justifies moral atrocities – only prioritizing human rights protects those
moral horrors.
Byron, Philosophy Professor at Kent State University, 2009
(Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics, XI, 2009, 1, pp. 470-494 Human Rights: A Modest Proposal,
Michael Byron Kent State University, http://www2.units.it/etica/2009_1/BYRON.pdf)
Human rights have become an enormously useful tool in the last century, and this for a variety of
reasons. Rights remain a moral bulwark against an overzealous utilitarianism: where the many
would sacrifice the one, rights give reason to protect the one. The logic of cost and benefit is
siren song to bureaucrats and administrators, promising an overly easy commensuration of conflicting
values, lives, and choices. Rights talk can prevent grave moral harms from being swept under
the rug of the ‘costs’ of some favored policy. In their political conception, human rights help us
understand and normalize legitimate relations between nation states and their citizens. The language
and logic of ‘collateral damage’ — a polite term for the allegedly unintended destruction and
murder that would pass for a side effect of modern military actions — threatens to undermine a
respect for persons, hiding them in blighted post-traumatic landscapes. Rights talk helps us
identify such violations. The growing literature on human rights serves also as a guide to
international relations, the cultivation of treaties, and the rhetoric of diplomacy. Concern grows
worldwide about the effects of pollution, child labor, and related harms to people and their
environments, in both developed and developing nations. Rights talk can be a useful propaedeutic to
the resolution of such disputes.
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Immigration Surveillance Affirmative
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Novice Division
Answers To: Plan Can’t Solve – Inefficient Systems
[__]
[__] The federal government mandate to monitor and detain undocumented immigrants is the
root cause of our immigration systems inefficiencies.
Robbins, reporter at NPR, 2013
(Ted Robbins, Little-Known Immigration Mandate Keeps Detention Beds Full,
http://www.npr.org/2013/11/19/245968601/little-known-immigration-mandate-keeps-detention-bedsfull)
Imagine your city council telling the police department how many people it had to keep in jail
each night. That's effectively what Congress has told U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement with a policy known as the "detention bed mandate." The mandate calls for filling
34,000 beds in some 250 facilities across the country, per day, with immigrant detainees. When NPR
visited the Department of Homeland Security's detention center in Florence, Ariz., hundreds of men
— nearly all from Latin America — were lining up for lunch. They were caught by the Border Patrol or,
if apprehended away from the border, by local police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
People can stay behind the razor-wire fences for days, weeks or years. NPR was not allowed to
talk with anyone in the detention center, but Francisco Rincon, who was recently released from
Florence on bond, says he was in the facility for three weeks. Every day he was in detention cost
taxpayers at least $120. Add up all the nation's detention centers and that's more than $2
billion a year. The detention bed mandate, which began in 2009, is just part of the massive
increase in enforcement-only immigration policies over the last two decades. The last time
Congress passed a broad immigration law dealing with something other than enforcement — such as
overhauling visa or guest worker policies — was 1986.
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Answers To: Plan Can’t Solve – States Will Continue to Exclude
[__]
[__] Even if states have the right to deport there is no moral justification for the violent means
by which mass deportations are carried out.
Velasquez, The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, 2014
(Jean-Claude Velasquez, The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity Honorable Mention Recipient,
The Invisible & Voiceless: The Plight of the Undocumented Immigrant in America, http://businessethics.com/2014/09/30/1944-the-invisible-voiceless-the-plight-of-the-undocumented-immigrant-inamerica/)
Mass deportation of undocumented immigrants only instills terror in the immigrant community
and it is an expensive, impractical, and inefficient policy. Nevertheless, numerous politicians advocate
for such sweeping exclusionary measures. Deportation should only be limited to serious criminal
offenders; hardworking individuals must not be subjected to such harsh consequences for merely
pursuing a better life for themselves and for their children. As a nation of justice and fairness, what
do we have to say to the millions of children who have to worry every day about the fact that
their parents might not come home? And what do we have to say to the parents who face the
prospect of being torn from their children? As long as the United States is a free and prosperous
nation, immigrants will venture to pursue the American Dream, even if the cost is political nonexistence or, as Jorge Ramos says, “they become invisibles” for the sake of a better life. A sweeping
study conducted by The Center for American Progress revealed compelling evidence of the
extraordinary costs of mass deportation. The cost to apprehend the millions of undocumented
will require Gestapo-style raids at workplaces and homes ultimately costing $158 billion [8].
Housing these undocumented at detention centers will cost $29 billion and an extra $7 billion will be
accrued through legal proceeding costs [9].The transportation cost of all the undocumented to their
native country has a price tag of $6 billion [10]. Furthermore, the cost of continuing-enforcement over
a five-year period will be over $85 billion [11]. In other words, the “total cost over five years: $285
billion, would mean new taxes of $922 for every man, woman, and child in our country.”[12] These
calculations were conducted for the fiscal year of 2008; therefore, the present day cost will be
significantly higher due to inflation. The monetary costs of mass deportation are mind boggling, but
what should strike concern in the heart of the citizen is how his or her tax dollars will be used: the
persecution of every undocumented child, woman, and man, rallied up like cattle to ultimately meet
their fate of deportation. The world would watch in awe as the greatest exemplar of freedom
treats a portion of her population as some kind of unwanted pest and as human rights
violations occur. The most terrifying aspect of mass deportation is the modus operandi: imagine
immigration officers armed to the teeth raiding meat packing factories, homes of the wealthy, and
farms, all common workplaces for the undocumented. The butcher, nanny, and grape picker would be
punished for the sole reason of working and being in the country illegally.
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Immigration Surveillance Affirmative
RIUDL
Novice Division
Answers To: Plan Causes Increased Smuggling
[__]
[__] The root cause of smuggling crisis is poverty and gang violence. Continuing to deport
people will do nothing to solve it.
Hing, reporter for Colorlines, 2014
(Julianne Hing, Three Myths of the Unaccompanied Minors Crisis, Debunked,
colorlines.com/articles/three-myths-unaccompanied-minors-crisis-debunked)
However, humanitarian groups like the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the
Women's Refugee Commission have noted the jump in unaccompanied minor border crossings
since late 2011 (PDF), long before Obama announced DACA in June of 2012. What's more, in
interviews with hundreds of detained youth, multiple agencies and researchers have found that
the vast majority have no idea about the existence of DACA, let alone the notion that they
might take advantage of it for themselves. Some have also theorized that smugglers are
advertising DACA or the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), a Bush-era law
which allows unaccompanied minors to be released into the custody of family or a sponsor while they
await a deportation hearing in front of a judge, as the U.S. laying out the welcome mat for migrant
children. In a House Homeland Security Committee hearing last week, Department of Homeland
Security Secretary Jeh Johnson gave credence to the theory that the influx is due in part to
migrants swayed by smugglers' false "promisos" of a free pass once they arrive in the U.S.
Smugglers may be using the falsehood to drum up business for themselves, says Michelle
Brané, the director of the Women's Refugee Commission's Migrant Rights and Justice program, but
endemic gang violence and abject poverty are the decisive motivating factors creating the
demand for their services. "People decide to leave first, and then they look for a way to leave,"
says Brané. "Just because [migrants] think the U.S. is nicer than we actually are doesn't mean
that they don't need protection and don't qualify for protection," says Brané.
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Immigration Surveillance Affirmative
Boston Debate League
Varsity Division
Answers To: Plan Causes Violent Militias
[__]
[__] The biggest reason why violent militias increased was the recession not immigration.
Bennet, Meredith Professor of History at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University, 2010
(David H. Bennett, When Government Became the Enemy,
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/the-new-militias-vs-government/?_r=0)
In the 1990s, with the decline of nativism and the end of the cold war, the traditional
scapegoats for right-wing extremists facing difficult times — an unassimilatable horde of “unAmerican” peoples or a treasonous band of “un-American” ideologists — no longer were available. It
was the government itself that became the enemy within. Now, in 2010, with unemployment
hovering at 10 percent, with the hollowing out of America’s manufacturing base not only
eliminating millions of blue-collar jobs but creating anxiety about national decline, should it be
surprising that a new Democratic administration in Washington (led by an African-American
president) — calling for federal action on health care, the environment, energy and other matters —
would stimulate the re-emergence of right-wing fringe groups? Unable to deal with the
complex reasons for the economic collapse, certain that sinister forces are at work in
Washington undermining American power and selling out the nation to international enemies,
the revived militia movements look much like those that came before.
[__] An improved economy and crackdown by law enforcement has substantially reduced the
number of militias
Southern Poverty Law Center 2014
(SPLC Report: Far-right extremist groups decline but remain at near-record levels,
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/news/splc-report-far-right-extremist-groups-decline-but-remainat-near-record-levels)
The SPLC found that the number of hate groups dropped by 7 percent – from 1,007 in 2012 to
939 in 2013. Hate groups reached a peak in 2011 with 1,018 groups. The more significant decline
came within the antigovernment “Patriot” movement, composed of armed militias, “sovereign
citizens,” and other conspiracy-minded organizations that see the federal government as their enemy.
These groups fell 19 percent – from 1,360 groups in 2012 (an all-time high) to 1,096 in 2013. The
decline followed an unprecedented rise that began in 2008, the year President Obama was elected,
when a mere 149 Patriot groups were operating.
The president’s 2012 re-election – unexpected by many on the right – appears to have drained
energy from the movement. Other factors that apparently are contributing to the decline are an
improving economy, crackdowns by law enforcement, and the adoption of far-right issues by
mainstream politicians.
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