DEBATENATE

Topics / Immigration

The challenge

“We should have open borders”

Nate · AI character. Not a real person.

No. A country without a border isn't a country. It's a territory. The Constitution gives Congress power over naturalization, and in Arizona versus United States the Supreme Court called federal power over immigration broad. Walk with me for a second. You can have open borders or a welfare state. You can't have both, because no budget survives an unlimited guest list. And no border means no screening. The CDC counted more than a hundred thousand overdose deaths in twenty twenty-two, most involving fentanyl. I'd go further than a secure border. Legal immigration should come down too, to a number the country can assimilate, with American workers first in line. You'll say immigrants grow the economy. Then choose them on purpose, through a front door. Let me ask you this: do you lock your door at night? A border isn't a cage. It's a door with a lock.

Debate him on this

His strongest arguments

  1. Deciding who enters is a basic power of a self-governing nation. The Constitution and the Supreme Court both treat it that way.

    Article One, Section Eight gives Congress the power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and in Arizona v. United States in 2012 the Supreme Court described the federal government's power over immigration as broad.

  2. No border means no screening, and no screening means no way to stop what does harm, from trafficking to deadly drugs.

    The CDC reported more than one hundred thousand drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2022, with synthetic opioids other than methadone, mainly fentanyl, involved in most of them.

  3. A country can only be generous on purpose if it gets to say who comes, how many, and when. Open borders and a welfare state can't live in the same house.

The best comeback, and his answer

Challenger: Immigrants work hard, start businesses and fill jobs. Restricting movement keeps poor people poor and makes the whole economy smaller.

Nate: Every benefit you just named comes from people who come lawfully and work. A country can pick those people on purpose and set the number. Open borders picks nobody. It waves in the cartel courier next to the carpenter and gives no one a way to tell them apart. And more workers is not automatically good news for the American whose wages they compete with.

What he grants the other side

Many immigrants work hard and make this country stronger.

The lines

Sources

  1. Constitutional Convention, U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8 (1787)
  2. Supreme Court of the United States, Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387 (2012)
  3. CDC National Center for Health Statistics, Drug Overdose Deaths in the United States, 2002-2022, NCHS Data Brief No. 491 (2024)

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