the US government should prioritize the humanitarian needs of refugees over its national interest.

It is also for me a refreshing feeling to see a PF debater. Since my opponent did not offer any terms, I will lay them out. Prioritize-determine the order for dealing with (a series of items or tasks) according to their relative importance Humanitarian-concerned with or seeking to promote human welfare Refugees-. a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster: Oxford Dictionaries ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contention 1: Benefits of Immigrants This contention will look at the numerous examples of where immigrants actually benefit the American economy. I will disprove the false accusations that immigrants and refugees harm the economy. It is actually quite different. Mexican Immigration(illegal immigration): This scenario is similar to Syrian refugees. , because most undocumented immigrants view themselves as escaping an oppressive government with no opportunity. According to state and local tax analysis, undocumented immigrants contribute 588 million annually. According to The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, undocumented immigrants contribute 11.6 billion dollars every single year. This is just one scenario where immigrants make a positive impact on the American economy. One should ask themselves why it seems like a significant portion of the American population despises them despite there contributions to the US economy. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Muslim Immigration: I think that this is the most important part of my case. My opponent has made many claims suggesting that Syrians and Muslims could be terrorists. The evidence I will present completely disproves this. They're better educated than most Americans U. S. Muslims have the second-highest level of education among major religious groups in the country; Jews have the highest. And a greater proportion of them have college degrees than the general U. S. population. They have more gender equality "While in many parts of the Muslim world, women are confined to second-class status, that's not the case among American Muslims. Virtually all of them, 90%, agree that women should be able to work outside the home. American Muslim women hold more college or postgraduate degrees than Muslim men. And they are more likely to work in professional fields than women from most other U. S. religious groups. They're not as dogmatic as they are portrayed Much has been made about fundamentalist Muslims and their strict interpretation of the Quran. But most American Muslims are different. A Pew religious landscape survey found that 57% of American Muslims say there is more than one way to interpret Islam's teachings. A similar number say many different religions can lead to eternal life. Muslims also spoken out against it After every terrorist attack at home and abroad, the refrain rises, "Where is the Muslim condemnation? " American Muslims have spoken out -- and done much more. A Duke University study found more terrorism suspects and perpetrators were brought to the attention of law enforcement by members of the Muslim-American community than were discovered through U. S. government investigations. And a Pew survey found that roughly half of U. S. Muslims say their religious leaders aren't speaking out enough against Islamic extremism. " By Holly Yan, CNN ---------------- The empirical evidence stated here just proves that Muslims are indeed capable of fitting into an American environment. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Statistics: -Immigrants make up 12% of American population. ------------------------------------------ -They make up 16% of small business owners in America which makes a lot of them job creators. ------------------------- -1990 and 2005, immigrants started 25 percent of venture backed U. S. public companies, employing more than 200,000 U. S. workers. And some of the companies at the forefront of the digital revolution were co-founded by immigrants: Intel, Sun Microsystems, eBay, Google, and Yahoo to name a few examples. ---------------------------------------- -Compared to U. S. -born Americans, immigrants are more likely to hold an advanced degree and are almost twice as likely to hold a Ph. D ----------------------------------------- Contention 2-American Wealth A lot of people that negate this resolution would claim that America is not wealthy enough to handle immigrants. I believe that this is the most false claim that one could make. Here is why: US GDP is 17.43 trillion dollars. US assets combined is 225 trillion dollars. Our military budget is over 800,000 billion dollars. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- My opponent could claim that this is not important due to the fact that we owe a lot of debt. Although, my opponent is right to an extent; she still has to consider who we owe our debt too. Here is why: "We owe most of the money to ourselves. "We owe a big chunk of the money " about $6 trillion " to the Federal government. So if there ever were a default (hopefully there won"t be) the government would also be stiffing itself. "We owe about $5 trillion to other countries, including China. "The total debt to China is only $1.3 trillion. Sources: . https://www.treasury.gov... . http://www.theblaze.com... . http://www.humanosphere.org... . http://www.thenation.com...