Should Immigrants pay a fee percentage, on any money sent out of this country.

Apologies for formatting. Editor is flawed.I would like to begin by thanking my opponent for, in his latest argument, making a greater effort to provide information to allow for the evaluation of his claims and sources. While making generic and incomplete references doesn't pass for citation, at least it's a start. But I'd like to focus on four issues in this response: (1) My opponent continues to argue about illegal immigration when his position involves a claim about all immigrants, legal and illegal. (2) My opponent has failed to explain why it is justifiable to inflict a fee on law-abiding immigrants. (3) My opponent has misrepresented his sources. (4) The facts weigh against my opponent's position. (1) My opponent is ignoring a large portion of the discussion about the costs and benefits associated with immigrants. My opponent proposed a debate on the claim that immigrants should pay a fee on money they send out of the country, based on his premise that immigrants are a net cost to the U.S. All of my opponent's assertions focus on illegal immigration. However, legal immigrants make up approximately 75% of the immigrant population in the U.S. [1] My opponent's claims are essentially non-responsive to my factual position that immigrants are a net benefit, since my opponent has focused on only a fraction of immigrants. (2) My opponent is arguing that all immigrants should pay a fee on remittances, but his argument focuses on the costs he claims are imposed by undocumented immigrants. This is tantamount to a claim that lawfully present immigrants should be charged a fee for a lawful transaction because of my opponent's belief about an unlawful group of immigrants. Punishment for another's crimes based on group identity or discriminatory regulation of lawful behavior (sending money out of country) based on alien status violates due process and equal protection.[2] Most importantly, a person's alien status has been found an invalid reason for most discriminatory treatment, including discriminatory economic treatment. [id]My opponent has offered no credible response to the fact that his proposition is unconstitutional. (3) I have already discussed the flaws in my opponent's unclear citation of "FAIR," and will now show that he has misrepresented his sources in his most recent arguments. (A) "George J." is not much to go on, but a little determination yeilds, George J. Borjas, an immigrant who has made his career in part about the evils of immigration. Borjas takes a minority position among economists, who criticize him for making assumptions that are inconsistent with observations and theory. For instance, David Card points out that Borjas' argument that immigration harms low-wage workers does not hold water: (1) Borjas falsely assumes that the economy is rigid and that native workers and immigrants are good substitutes. (2) Borjas ignores that recessionary forces, macro and micro changes, and technology are probably better explanations for wage conditions. (3) Borjas ignores emperical data that does not support his claims, such as the coincidence of high immigration and wage gains for unskilled workers.[3] (B) My opponent misrepresent his source, which claims that the data have been conflicting and the government's numbers unclear.[4] (C) It is unclear what my opponent means to show by citing facts that are 16 years out of date. His argument is about what we should do now, and what Arizona spent in 1999 is irrelevant to what conditions are today. (D) My opponent misrepresents the CBO, which found that impacts on localities were "modest." In any case, the CBO report was merely a survey of 29 studies that had been done from about 1992, so these are old and insubstantial conclusions.[5] (E) As there are perhaps hundreds of CRS reports on immigration[6], it's impractical for me to uncover my opponent's source. However, the discussion I could find shows that my opponent misrepresented the report--many of the crimes were charged against single individuals (either because one person committed many crimes or because of the universal practice of charging lesser included offenses), and the data concerned only charges, not convictions.[7] (F) I am not sure how to find my opponent's unreferenced quote; however, it is based on old data, because current border crossings are much lower than 1 million annually, let alone for any one state.[8] Increased border security, harsher penalties associated with returns, foreign factors, and recessionary economics have reduced illegal crossings substantially.[9] (4) As discussed throughout my arguments, the facts weigh against my opponent. The Cato Institute, hardly a den of liberals, argues that immigrants are not more likely to be criminals and that immigration has positive economic effects, encouraging U.S. workers to seek more education and higher paying jobs.[10] The idea that immigrants are criminals is old and has never been supported by convincing data--in fact, immigrants have lower than expected crime rates for their economic groups. That, despite the crudeness they have faced over the centuries by people who thinking that being able to press 8 for Spanish passes for being nice.[11] In terms of the economic impact of immigrants, even illegal immigrants generated about $11 billion in state taxes alone (let alone federal taxes)[12], and I have cited data in my previous arguments and above to support the net positive impact of immigrants as an entire group. My opponent's claim that immigration is unusually high or unsustainable at this time is false--it is no higher than has usually been common in our society.[13] Nor has he shown that remittances are too high given the amount of money earned and spent in the U.S. by immigrants--in fact, remittances are estimated to be around $50 billion, while the tax revenue generated by immigrants is around $160 billion. In short, remittances are a small percentage of economic activity by immigrants, and an infinitisimal fraction of GDP.[14]Furthermore, my opponent's arguments seem to be highly focused on Arizona, which makes sense, because the illegal immigration issues he discusses are confined to just a few states.[15] Much like failing to discuss all immigrants, discussing conditions relevant only to a few states renders my opponent's claims and conclusions suspect. In short, the facts do not support my opponent, who has misreprented virtually every source he references and has attempted to focus on only one small subset of immigrants and state conditions to justify his proposed rule about all immigrants throughout the entire nation. There is no reason to charge governmental fees on remittances, which already generate substantial banking fees.[16] Remittances are a negligible part of our economy, but have a big positive impact in developing nations. Remittances are good. And to boot, my opponent's argument is premised on incomplete analysis and false assertions about the cost and criminality of immigrants.Lewis Carroll? Back at you. And, by the way, "liberalism" is "a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality," it's not a synonym for "Democrat," "liberal," or whatever it is that you hate so much. And I don't need to resort to calling my opponent frail, emotional, or a malcontent to demonstrate that his position and reasoning is complete and utter nonsense.Sources: [1] http://pewrsr.ch... and http://bit.ly.... [2] http://bit.ly... and http://bit.ly.... [3] http://bit.ly... and http://nyti.ms... and http://bit.ly... [4] http://bit.ly... [5] http://1.usa.gov... [6] http://bit.ly... [7] http://nyti.ms... [8] http://cnn.it... [9] http://pewrsr.ch... [10] http://bit.ly... [11] http://bit.ly... and http://huff.to... and http://bit.ly... [12] http://bit.ly... [13] http://bit.ly... [14] http://bit.ly... and http://bit.ly... [15] http://pewrsr.ch... [16] http://bit.ly...