The US Federal Government Should Not Construct a Border Fence Between the US and Mexico

Con's arguments on cost and effectiveness should have came in round 3, any made after that should be disregarded as per the rules he created and posted in round 1.With that being said I want to start by summarizing my thoughts on the debate up to this point. I typically do that as a final point, but will do it here, just because I feel like it. I don't think my oppnent made a good case, but if you disagree than he made a good case for legal immigration, not allowing illegal immigration. If we need a high flow of immigration to sustain our economic growth than it should be legal. My opponents arguments/rebuttals can be summed up into a few points. One point is that If we stop illegal immigration over the border it will not completely stop an inflow of drugs or disease or terrorists or a number of other things I mentioned. This is like arguing one should not put a lock on their front door to stop burglers, because there is no lock on their back door. This is silly for two reasons. The first is that there is nothing about putting a lock on the front door that prevents us from putting a lock on the backdoor as well. We should not let the intruder through the front door, merely because one also managed to get through the back door. To put it another way, an extension of con's logic would have him not allowing police to patrol the street because they can't prevent all crimes from happening. I'll refer back to this point a few times because my opponent has made the argument more than once that we should not prevent whatever bad effect illegal immigration across the border causes, because it only reduces the likelihood of said effect occurring and does not completely eradicate it. As if any policy would eradicate anything entirely, and as if it is not worth it to reduce the number of bad things occurring at a significatnt rate.Another argument routinely made is that ilegal immigration would just increase by overstaying VISAS, which is clearly preferrable than illegally crossing over through he border, at least with an overstay we can track who is coming into the United States, we can make sure whoever does get through is background tested, fully immunized and not carrying contagious diseases. Even if they overstay their visit we still have made America better, we have still made life for the immigrants who often die trying to get to America illegally, better by giving them a safer point of entry. No longer will they fear dying crossing such horrible terrain, nor do they have to fear being raped at a rate of over 80% to get here. They can finally be safe once we build a wall and allow for easier legal immigration.Another big argument my opponent keeps making is that building a wall is pointless because the current wall doesn't work, which if the current wall was effective we wouldn't be debating this. The current wall barely exists and is often just a single fence, there is also an enourmous amount of terrain not covered by the fence. If the fence was of any quality and extended across the border we would not be having it. My opponent argues that a wall will just have people building tunnels or throwing ladders over it. Which even if that was the case would slow them down and allow for easier capture, but it won't as this is not your typical single layer fence. It is a double layer fence with a barbed wire triangle in the center. It is impossible to just throw a ladder over it as my opponent implies. The Real Reason for the Fence1.Rape- In my round 2 I pointed out that over 80% of women and even young girls are raped when coming across the Mexican-American border. This is something unacceptable when we can just build a wall and bring them in legally to avoid being taken advantage of by people smugglers. My opponent says: "One of the main reasons women in particular are immigrating to the U.S. in the first place is because they are fleeing rape." I guess his point being since these girls fear rape in their own country, we should just allow them to get raped by having open borders. Even if my opponent's statement was completely honest, we should not trade their fear of rape for actual rape. Not when we can bring them in legally like I said before. Not when we can bring them in a safe and sensible way. We do not have to allow the flood gates to open, just to take in some drinking water. There is another problem with my opponent's rape argument besides that obvious fact. It only comes from interviewing Salvadoran children,which make up only about 16,000 of the 800,000 people crossing the border illegally.(assuming central American children are spread equally) http://www.theatlantic.com...Assuming the kid's fears are justified (Which hasn't been shown), Allowing practically every woman to get raped outside of that demographic is unethical. Hell even allowing the rape of those 16,000 kids my opponent mentioned instead of providing them refuge would be unethical. 2. Ladders and tunnels and holes oh my- In round 2 I showed how a similar wall in Israel took illegal immigratrion across the border from over 10,000 a year to under 36. I gave evidence that a fence in the Yuka area caused illegal immigration to drop 94%. Here is what my opponent says on the subject, and notice that he drops my arguments that a fence designed the way I suggested would be close to 100% effective. He never once challenged my examples so they stand: "It is designed less to stop people from crossing the border illegally than to apprehend them once they have crossed.” This means that migrants are still going to go through difficult terrain, still causing thousands of them to die every year. It's just that it would potentially be easier to apprehend them after they cross the border fence." The argument is silly for a number of reasons, one is that given he accepts my examples that the fence would be 100% effective, and if we assume that the fence would make apprehension easier, but not necessarilty be good at stopping immigrants in their tracks, than he is making the argument that even though there is a near 100% chance illegal immigrants will get caught at the border, they will still continue to cross in the same numbers. I doubt this theory for obvious reasons and he has not supported his. It seems to me that if somebody knew for close to 100% certainty they would fail they would be less likely to make an attempt at it. Like I stated before, 43% of he border is completely unguarded. That is a huge incentive to attempt to come into the country illegally. With my proposal 0% would be unguarded, destroying much of the motivation for even attempting to come in illegally. refer back to my effectiveness arguments in round 2 to see that my opponent completely dropped them in his rebuttals.3.Terrorists- Suspected terrorists have been caught crossing the border. I have cited this fact, and no rebuttal for my citation occurred. We can't completely stop terrorists from coming in but, that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to shore them up the security weaknesses we can. Refer back to the argument on locks earlier this round. Con argues that none of the suspected terrorists caught at the border has had weapons. The terrorists that committed 9-11 did not have weapons from outside the country. The Boston bombers did not have weapons from outside the country. The Oklahoma City bombing was not committed by using weapons found in another country. Terrorists don't bring weapons from other countries, they just go to the pawn shop and get them. This is why they need to be stopped at the border. Each one of those attacks cost billions, just a one prevented pays for the wall, and we have caught terrorist crossing the border. A fact I cited in round 2 which my opponent does not refute.4. Environment- My opponent's source does not back up his claim that new species are somehow introduced by a wall, but beyond that sedimentation problems can be negated by creating tunnels that allow the free flow of water. Animal crossings that can detect humans have been suggested and can be put into the wall. Overall the environmental problems are overstated and easy to mitigate with a few tweaks to the wall once we begin to notice the problems.5. Healthcare- My arguments on how much illegal immigrants cost taxpayers needs to be reviewed by the judges. Con has offerred two sources that illegal immigrants pay more into the sytem than they take out. His 6th source is for 2nd generation hispanic immigrants and not relevent to a debate on the effects of illegal immigration. His 5th source is about medicare and not the healthcare system overall. Most illegal immigrants do not have medicare. a recap of round 2. Illegals in California are more likely to go to the emergency room costing California billions alone for the uninsured illegal immigrants. (most) They also spread disease to others who we have to pay for through taxes or higher premiums.6. Political Change- My opponent brings up political leaders better able to escape tyranny and create change from outside their homelands. There are 2 problems with this. The first is he is referring to highly influential political leaders, this is not something that can be done by the average Joe. The 2nd problem is he is referring to undemocratic societies. Obviously voters in a Democratic society can more easily make change by staying and voting then by having all people upset with the system just leave. 7. Crime- Con's Crime statistics once again included legal immigrants while mine only referred to illegals. ConclusionWe don't need to deport the illegals currently here con has argued we benefit from to build a wall. We can keep those benefits. If it is beneficial to have a large flow of immigrants we can still have that, but in a controlled sensible and legal way. The cost of the wall is affordable as argued in round 2, but the arguments were dropped.