2nd DDO Census Debate: Syrian Refugees

Thanks again to Con and let's do this. 1. Crisis Con drops our arguments. Extend the extensive list of countries that are actively excluding refugees by closing their borders and violently defending them. Extend that the countries that are taking refugees are overburdened already, and that the situation for refugees in those nations is so absolutely desperate that many are returning to Syria. Extend that Syria itself is extremely unsafe due to the civil war, which has led to millions of displaced persons. Extend that these refugees can only take extremely dangerous routes into Europe, resulting in thousands of deaths in transit. And extend that these lives matter, regardless of their country of origin, and that to ignore their plight is to ignore their basic humanity. That is, fundamentally, what Con is doing. They haven't offered any alternate means of helping them. They've just said that we won't take them. The competing harms they've presented don't even compare. They have no home, no safety, no stability, nothing but the little they carry with them. To say that potential discrimination and a poor living standard is an upgrade is an understatement: they face violent confrontations with border guards and the lowest of living standards today. But neither of their claims are correct. On welcoming refugees, We presented a source last round that showed that many citizens are willing to open their homes to these refugees.[26] Over a thousand people would welcome these refugees into their homes in direct contradiction to Con's assertions. The so-called "vast majority of Americans" who don't want these refugees to come here is actually 52%, the actual vast majority (~80%) of which are Republicans.[32] That leaves 48%, some 150 million people, who aren't antagonistic to refugee arrival, most of whom are Democrats. As long as the resettlement program takes that into account and settles them in more liberal regions of the country, discrimination will be minimized. On cost of living, While Con is correct that the cost of living is much higher in the U.S. than in Syria, that's not a reason to believe that they would be destitute. The vast majority of refugees have obtained jobs and self-sufficiency through the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement's efforts. Refugees are more likely to be employed than Americans, and 69% are self-sufficient after 180 days.[33, 34] Note that this is with successful admissions from Iraq and Burma,[35] and some 40,000 from Bosnia, which has a similar cost of living.[36] Data even indicates that refugees do far better than average in schools, meaning that we are actively raising their standard of living for when they return home.[37] But even if many of them stay poor, the basic support given to the poor in this country is still far better than anything they're going to receive from an almost solidly antagonistic Europe and an egregiously overburdened Middle East. Lastly, Con talks about 7 countries in which these people could live that are far cheaper. However, Jordan and Lebanon have already taken on way more refugees than they can handle, and the standard of living there is abysmal to the point that refugees are returning to Syria.[19] Jordan's even closed it's borders, as have Qatar, UAE, Oman, and Saudi Arabia have outright refused to take on refugees.[18] Iraq has accepted over 240,000 refugees,[38], but considering that they're also in the midst of major conflicts with the Islamic State, they're hardly a reasonable alternative.[39] 2. Duty Yes, this is a "should" resolution. That doesn't mean we're traveling back in time to before Obama made the promise and debating about what should have been done at that time. We're debating about what should be done now, and that means that our promises do exist. All "should" tells us is that, if we choose to reject the resolution, we will not take in refugees, but that doesn't mean that the negative response goes away. Just because that reality makes it harder Con doesn't mean that it should be rejected in favor of reversing time. Our points are ignored. Con drops that the U.S. has more than sufficient capacity and the necessary framework to take on these refugees. They drop that rejecting our self-imposed burdens would send the worst kind of message regarding our views of Syrians: you're all potential terrorists unworthy of the basic human rights we bestow on so many other refugees. It's telling Syrians that we know they're in the most desperate of situations, but we can't be bothered. But that's just our self-imposed duty. Con just dismisses any international image problem as a non-issue, but ignores the context for why other countries would be upset. The costs of the migrant crisis on Europe are so staggering that the European Union can barely even determine what impact it's having on them. Sweden, which has closed its borders and doesn't require a fence to keep refugees out, is having to raise spending by 0.5% of GDP (roughly $28 billion) just to account for the population they have, their GDP is likely to fall due to widespread unemployment, and wages are set to drop as well.[40, 41] This tremendous stress on labor markets is resulting in mass unemployment among migrants, which is bound to get worse as millions more refugees keep migrating into Europe.[40] We pointed out last round, and Con has dropped, that the refugee crisis is set to tear apart Europe, throwing the economies of all member nations into disarray and recession.[6] Con's response to all this is "well, does that really matter?" Of course it does! Telling the entire EU that their problems are not our problems, that they must bear the brunt of the refugee crisis, and that we will do nothing to assist them with the vast populations of Syrian refugees is a huge slap in the face when they're going through on the brink of yet another financial collapse. Ignoring the UN's request to even consider accepting these people treats our membership in that international group as purely nominal - after all, why bother listening to the body we helped found and currently lead? Why lead by example, showing other countries that they should accept refugees, when we could look after xenophobic and false personal interests? Con cares only about public perception of the decision to take these refugees, but there's no impact to people being a little upset with the government over a decision they disagree with. There's a substantial impact to telling Europe and the UN that we don't care about their problems. 3. Backlash When Con concedes that ISIS is successful mainly based on its propaganda, they've already lost this point. Remember, they're actively supporting a system where we exclude every single Syrian refugee, reinforcing statements from people like Donald Trump that all Muslims should be excluded. That's the message that their case sends to the world: you're Muslim, and you're a potential national security threat. It doesn't help that 27% of the country wants to ban Muslims from the U.S.[42] Rejecting refugees would lend credence to the perception that that view controls our national policy. And that's a message that ISIS would love to spread. It's really easy to do because there's absolutely no counter to it. There aren't people who are being treated well that can contradict it. There is only the negative. What do we have if we accept some Syrian refugees? Sure, some may be mistreated, but discrimination isn't likely to result in anything dramatic like deaths or beatings, which they face in Europe and the Middle East. Many are likely to be treated well, and every single one of them functions as an example to the contrary. Every Syrian refugee with a job, a roof over their head, food on their plate, and no threat of impending death is an example that ISIS will have to suppress. They will have to work at that, with potentially thousands of stories showing up on social media. Con doesn't explain why anything in our [30] is inaccurate. It focuses on what kind of messaging the Islamic State is pursuing, mainly how they want the West to be perceived. As a result of the U.S., as Con stated, "honor[ing] it's own citizen's concerns for National Security" and rejecting Syrian refugees, Con is actively feeding the message of prejudice and fear. This will be viewed as the same kind of rampant xenophobia and paranoia that ISIS has sold as being representative of the entire western world. So when Con talks about our 3 "ideals" (by which they should mean "impacts"), they ignore all of this link structure in an attempt to ignore them. It's still there. 1. Any good treatment is better than none. Good treatment always undermines propaganda, and that is entirely absent in Con's case. 2. It's not "Happy go lucky" to say that over a thousand people would gladly welcome refugees into their homes and that much of the population would not reject them. The messaging can only improve. As for the idea that the U.S. will be just like other countries in their experiences, a) we can easily control the flow of refugees into this country, b) we have a resettlement program with proven results, and c) our economy is far better off than most in the EU. 3. Once again, Con offers you no alternatives. They will allow tens of thousands to continue defecting without doing anything to address the messaging that's causing it. While many of these people may be disdainful of what they perceive as American propaganda, they will be much more likely to listen to first-hand accounts of the violence in the region, and reconsider their decisions. And no, we're not assuming that they share a singular opinion on the issue, just a singular experience: abject terror, the very thing that drove them to flee. 32. bit.ly/1UnDsUD 33. bit.ly/1JnIRsR 34. 1.usa.gov/1RKe518 35. 1.usa.gov/1PhhVwP 36. bit.ly/1rnR7hR 37. nyti.ms/1iur6wx 38. bit.ly/1mU1gP7 39. bbc.in/1nbXXmb 40. for.tn/20pVedu 41. bit.ly/1NwKznR 42. bit.ly/23pJ9ar