We should get rid of illegal aliens.

Let me first note for the reader the number of personal attacks by my opponent. I will remain civil. Opponent Claims: 1. "$67.5 BILLION is leaving the country every year." 2. The above is money directly out of the pocket of Americans. 3. Crossing the border is illegal, thus making them criminals. 4. Illegal immigrants can not be taxed. 5. "To compare the United States to the Nazi Germans in the 1940's should be considered criminal." 6. "In the last year, illegal immigration has dropped 20%." 7. "Why is it our job to help raise the Mexican economy???" 8. "We have quite a high amount of Canadians jumping to get away from their horrible National Health Care System, but that's another day." 9. "as I read from your profile, you are against the War in Iraq. Does that mean we should help a country just because it is closer to us? Bush has been helping the Iraqi economy for years and received nothing but criticism. Now you are proposing that we help another country's economy? Hypocrite!" 10. "They have been detaining the criminals (everyone) for three plus weeks. Now this has deterred people from jumping considerably. Once they have a couple of weeks to lose, they won't be so inclined to do it." Rebuttal: 1. We are agreed that this is a bad situation. 2. Again, we are agreed that this is a bad situation. Though if we naturalize them they would have less of a need to send the money across the border. They would become 'Americans', so they would not be taking money from Americans. 3. I apologize for not clarifying what I meant by criminals. What I meant by criminals is Violent Criminals. Jumping the border is not a violent crime. I apologize for the confusion. I remind my opponent once again that rounding up all illegal immigrants would cost much more than allowing them to stay. This cost would be exponentially increased because there is no long term strategy to solve the problem so that they do not come back. 4. That is correct, they can not be taxed. This is one of the many reasons that we need to find long term solutions so that these issues do not come right back a few years down the road. 5. My opponent is attacking the Straw man. I did not compare the United States to Nazi Germany. My opponent's definition of Ethnic Cleansing: "the persecution through imprisonment, expulsion, or killing of members of an ethnic minority by a majority to achieve ethnic homogeneity in majority-controlled territory" This supports my statement that it is Borderline (emphasis here) Ethnic Cleansing. My opponent concedes that it is primarily Latin Americans and Mexicans that would be the target. Rounding up large numbers of them and deporting them would fit the discription above (imprisonment and expulsion). In order to do this efficiently we would have to confront most members of this ethnicity. This would violate the rights of those who are legally citizens. Failing that, it would be impossible to deport illegal immigrant in any significant number to correct the problem. Like I said, it is Borderline Ethnic Cleansing. We would be primarily targetting a specific ethnicity. Since we would not be specifically targetting an ethnicity (like we did with the Japanese during World War II), it would not be Ethnic Cleansing, but it would be Borderline Ethnic Cleansing. 6. Please cite your sources. I have no way to measure the accuracy of such unsupported claims. 7. It is not our duty to help the Mexican economy and I never claimed that it was. I stated that a strong Mexican economy is in the interest of the United States, and I don't think you can refute this point. On top of all of the other benefits, it also provides Mexicans with jobs and security. This means that less of them would feel the need to migrate to the United States. 8. Again, please cite your sources. This claim is not backed up with evidence. 9. Before defending myself, I will note that my opponent is engaging in personal attacks in order to attempt to discount my argument. "as I read from your profile, you are against the War in Iraq. Does that mean we should help a country just because it is closer to us? Bush has been helping the Iraqi economy for years and received nothing but criticism. Now you are proposing that we help another country's economy? Hypocrite!" It is true that I am against the Iraq War. This does not relate to the topic at hand. There is no connection between a desire for a strengthened Mexican economy and dissention against what I feel to be an unjust war. The implication seems to be that the war in some way 'helps' the Iraqi people. I find it hard to conclude that killing them and destroying their homes is in any way 'helping' them. Furthermore, it would be impossible for us to help the entire world. Yes, I propose helping the Mexican economy precisely because it is closer to us. What happens in Mexico directly affects us as a nation (with immigration as my opponent points out). It is in our interest to help them, it is not in our interest to 'help' Iraqis, though as I mention above we are not doing much 'helping'. The term 'hypocrite' would be better used on someone who supports our government in removing one dictator while simultaneously assisting other dictators. Remember that it was our government that put Saddam Hussein in power. 10. Please cite your source so I can ascertain the validity of your claim that this is our current policy. If it is our policy, I would point out that this would be far more expensive in the long run (and less effective) than other long term solutions. Conclusion: A better solution to the illegal immigration problem is to help strengthen the Mexican economy. This would be overall less expensive and more efficient than merely deporting them all and waiting for them to return so that we can repeat the process. Increasing border security and incarcerating newly arrived illegal immigrants is also much more costly in the long run. Allowing law abiding (as in, post border crossing) illegal immigrants to become naturalized would cost the tax payer less money. Coupling this with an efficient long term strategy would be the best policy thus far mentioned in this debate.