Pick your own topic

I apologize for calling Pro "Con" in the previous round. Pro is opposed to a border fence.'SummaryImmigration is a good for the U.S., but it should be legal and applicants should be screened. Polls reveal that 165 million people would like to immigrate to the United States. [23] Immigration controls are needed to ensure the skills of applicants are needed, that immigrants will not overwhelm the system of benefits, and that applicants do not have a criminal record. Immigration is only one of many reasons why countries want to control their borders. Border security checks the spread of infectious disease, intercepts counterfeit and illegal goods, blocks human trafficking, and, in recent years, helps control terrorism. New methods for evading border security continually are introduced and law enforcement counters with new security measures. Currently, the U.S. border with Mexico is a lure for all manner of illegal border activities because it is so poorly secured. A border fence is demonstrated to be a cost-effective method of enhancing border security.The cost of a high-security border fence is modest and would quickly be repaid. The "fence" is actually two fences with a road between them and electronic monitoring equipment. Basically, the fencing slows intruders and the road provides a means of high speed approach by law enforcement personnel. Nearly all the present U.S. border fence is low security, being the type that can be climbed without a ladder or having periodic gaps. Evidence from the approximately 20 miles of existing high security fence shows that it is extremely effective. Moreover, Israel has over 500 miles of the high security fence in place, and it has proven effective even against highly-motivated terrorists. Methods of defeating the fence such as long tunnels have proven impractical.The cost of a border fence sis modest relative to the budget of the Department of Homeland Security. DHS spends about $57 billion per year on security. The amortized cost of 700 miles of high-security fence is about $0.4 billion per year. My opponent did not dispute the fence costs.1.1 Currently 90% of taxes are paid by the top 10% of earners, and the bottom 45% pay no income tax at all. It is not plausible that adding uncontrolled numbers of low income workers will not burden taxpayers. Were it true, we'd be running surpluses.A detailed study of illegal immigration costs by FAIR put the total costs to taxpayers at $113 billion. My opponent claimed that the study did not account for taxes paid by illegal immigrants, but in fact the study carefully enumerated the taxes paid, a total of about $13 billion. My opponent also cited a study by the Perryman Group showing immigrant labor adding $245 billion in economic activity. But even if that is true, that would only yield about $40 billion in taxes, including the $13 billion paid directly. Pro says the Perryman Group study does not count money sent out of the country by illegal immigrants as part of the economic activity they produce, but I don't see any such claim in the Report. However, it's not just the money sent out at issue, it is the subsequent effect of the money failing to circulate in the US. There is a factor of six multiplication not taken into account which reduces economic activity here. Taking that into account, the net loss to the taxpayer is about $70 billion per year.Pro attempts to impeach the FAIR study by finding small errors and claiming that invalidates the whole study. He didn't find anything substantial. He found an error in a subsection cost statement, but the error was not propagated into the summary. He said FAIR didn't account for taxes collected, but two entire sections were devoted to exactly that. Pro said that half of taxes paid by illegals are excluded by the study for no reason. The reason is given on page 33. It is that half of the illegals work in the underground economy where taxes are not deducted or paid. It isn't that half are are excluded, half are never paid. Pro claimed that costs of childbirth were also included in emergency medical costs, but he gave no evidence that the costs were double-counted. Some people put childbirth into emergency medicine, but most do not. The Wikipedia list of emergence medical topics includes everything from cardiac arrest to snake bite, but does not include childbirth. [21] It is reasonable to put it as separate line item because of the incidence of so-called anchor babies, births arranged to convey citizenship. [22]I argued that by adopting a reasonable guest worker program most of the beneficial economic activity would occur without the high taxpayer costs. Employers could be charged for medical expenses, and workers could travel freely to their families in their home country. My opponent did not dispute this. Pro claims that the report equates emergency room use with fraud. it does not, as I pointed out in my R2 paragraph 3. He repeated the claim in R3 saying I didn't respond.1.2 It's much more efficient to intercept counterfeit and unsafe goods at the borders than at retail. If Pro's argument were valid, then we should suspend all border inspections, and no responsible enforcement person advocates that.1.3 Pro argues that tunnels would be used to defeat a border fence. That did has not happened to any significant extent in Israel or with the U.S. high security fencing. The fence spacing makes tunneling impractical, and sensors detect tunneling operations. Drones cost $8 - $17 million apiece [24] and they cannot arrest illegal immigrants. drones are cheap only in comparison to combat aircraft. A major part of the fence cost is the road needed to speed agents for apprehension.1.4 Pro again gives no evidence of the effectiveness of alternatives.1.5 Drug cartels are composed of professional criminals who have no limits on murder or kidnapping. Just as the Mob did not turn to honest work after Prohibition, there is no chance that drug lords would suddenly reform. In practice, it's extraordinarily unlikely that cocaine, meth, date rape drugs, and heroin will be legalized any time soon, so the likely avenue is to push these harder drugs. However, there is also precedent for turning to kidnapping as a revenue source. Professional criminals survive by crime, and kidnapping is a proven money maker.Pro argues that overall crime rates are slightly lower in the US near the border than in the U.S. as a whole. Pro's source shows murder and assault rates to be lower, car theft to be much higher, and most other crime rates about the same. His source does not give the rates for drug smuggling or immigration crimes. "Near the border" means within 100 miles, There are few population centers that close to the border; much of the region is desert and rural. Drugs and illegal immigrants rapidly disperse throughout the country, so if drugs and immigration crimes are not counted it's mainly the rural crime rate.There has been a general downward trend in overall crime rates for decades. That's generally attributed to an aging U.S. population. Since illegal immigrants are only about 4% of the population, they are not going to figure significantly in the overall trends.The crime rate near the border should be near zero because of rural isolation. One rancher on the border with only the help of his wife and brother, has apprehended nearly 12,000 illegal aliens on his ranch in a 6 1/2 year period. [25] 3500 acres of border parkland are closed due violence. [26] It's unacceptable.The resolution is negated.[21] http://en.wikipedia.org...[22] http://www.businessweek.com...[23] http://en.wikipedia.org...[24] http://www.newsmax.com...[25] http://www.desertinvasion.us...[26] http://www.foxnews.com...