bari weiss. >> the free press and fire acknowledge that the subject matter and themes presented at this event might be sensitive to certain guests. you may even to be offended by something that is said tonight. in that case, please take this time to once again locate the exit nearest to you and walk right through it. and now, the free press debate. should the u.s. shut its borders? ♪ >> the whole world has come you

people, and the people have become americans. americans are a land where people share what they know and work together. america has benefited, and we have benefited. we are the people of america. ♪ >> all americans in every place of this country are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. [shotuting] >> the united states is home to more migrants than any other country on earth. >> we call ourselves a nation of immigrants. >> the statue of liberty urges us to welcome the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. >> but now record high crossings at the southern border have

created a crisis. today i am declaring a state of emergency in massachusetts. >> a crisis that is not only felt among the 2000 a mile wide that divides the u.s. and mexico, but in cities and towns across mexico. >> it ain't our responsibility to take care of everybody else. >> i am outrage, and i don't understand why our community was chosen. >> this was usually around 1000 people. >> the national government has turned its back on new york city. >> the board's situation is pushing some american cities to the brink is more buses arrived from texas. >> poll after poll shows that immigration is the number one issue in the upcoming presidential election. >> build that wall. >> americans left and right agreed that the system is broken, but how do we fix it? >> a lot of folks think there was a

line to get into this country. maybe we should make one that works. >> is the problem of illegal immigration or immigration itself? >> doesn't have people who had something immediately to your country. >> they are not looking at the migrants as human beings. >> how do we create a system that is fair and humane? >> there is no food, no water. >> for those looking to make a new life in our country and for those already living here. so let's debate. >> newcomers make the land of opportunity a better place to live. >> normal americans care about being americans. >> people have reason to be alarmed by the sense of their own sovereignty. >> i came here, i love this country and want to defend the ideals that it stands for. >> what does a sensible

immigration policy look like? should we make it easier to come to our country? or should america shed its borders? -- shut its borders? ♪ >> and now, introducing the free press' bari weiss. [cheers and applause] bari: thank you so much. good evening, dallas. i hear everything is bigger in texas, but i ensure you the tent cities are bigger in l.a., but in all seriousness i'm excited to be here tonight. we have had such a warm welcome in dallas, but given my past few

months a warm welcome means no active death threats, so thank you so much. and i's debate would not be possible without the generosity of americanization -- of an organization that i deeply admire. the foundation for individual rights and expression. yes. [cheers and applause] if you care about free speech, and i imagine if you were here, you get yourselves among that number, if you believe that it is worth defending not just repeat what you agree with, but for people you vehemently disagree with, some of which i promise you will hear on stage tonight, fire is an organization that should be on your radar. we live in a culture obviously in which so many people have given up on the idea of debate itself. at the free press, we do not believe that.

we believe that the issues that matter most of americans are worth talking about out loud in public and without fear. we believe that free speech makes free people, and free people deserve a free press. we believe -- thank you. [cheers and applause] we believe in open, honest, good faith disagreements and in the power of persuasion, and that in the end is the point of tonight's debate, more important than the competition itself. if you are here tonight and have not yet become a subscriber to the free press, head over to fp.com after the debate and become a subscriber. i wanted to begin this evening with two stories both of which take place in texas. the first one is about a 33-year-old named christian serrano who came to the u.s. from mexico at five years old.

christian's status was always tenuous growing up because his family came here illegally. when the family set foot in this country they had $100 to their name. then in 2012 president obama passed daca and christian became one of more than one point 5 million dreamers permitted to stay in america. a few years ago christian started an award-winning architectural design firm that generates $5 million in revenue last year and employs more than 10 people across texas. that is one story, the story of christian serrano. the second story is about a 24-year-old named rafael romero. rafael came to the u.s. at 18 years old on the work visa. his visa expired but he stayed in this country anyway, bouncing around from job to job and living with his family in a mobile home 200 miles from where we are sitting right here. he was on probation for a felony burglary conviction when in

december of last year he stopped and brutally stabbed a 16-year-old high school cheerleader named elizabeth medina. her mother found her broader -- daughter dead in the bathtub at their apartment. these are the two faces or the two caricatures of the immigration debate, not just here in texas, but all across the country, and when you ask americans to picture an illegal immigrant, roughly half of the people in the country will think of someone like christian, and the other half of the people will think of someone like rafael, and that is important what has made this topic so impossible to discuss and so important to voters, and it is exactly why we chose immigration and the question of whether or not america should close its borders as the subject of our first 2024 live debate. at the united states has more

immigrants than any other country in the world. everyone who lives here, every single person in this room at some point came from somewhere else. how many mayflower descendants do you really know besides my wife who is that home in l.a. slaving at home. my great grandparents came from hungary and poland, they emigrated and became boxers, laggards, and loan sharks, which is an only in america story. now their granddaughter is a coastal elitist lesbian, and i have to think at some point this is what my ancestors came to this country forward. debate about how many and to lead into this country has world the nation since our founding, but in the past few years as everyone here surely knows things have heated up to a new level, and that should not come

it's a surprise considering that unlawful attempts to cross the southern border hit a record high of 2.5 one million last year. in the past four years, nearly five billion attempts to cross the border illegally happened in this stand-alone. we have all seen the videos, and you can choose your video that comes to mind. maybe it is of mothers with babies shimmying under barbed wire for a better life. maybe it is caravans of migrants marching toward texas, or young men from who knows where bum rushing border patrol agent's. this is why immigration is the top issue for voters in the 2024 election according to a recent wall street journal poll, more important than inflation, the economy itself. a march gallup poll indicated immigration is the top unprompted issue on voters' minds.

meanwhile 68 percent of americans including 56% of democrats disapprove of the president's handling of the border. this influx has made even progressive cities, which previously declared themselves in sanctuaries, sending a line. less may, chicago mayor lori lightfoot said we have reached a breaking point and declared a state of emergency in her city. in september, new york city mayor eric adam said the influx of migrants will, quote, destroy new york city. so which is it? are immigrant the lifeblood of the nation or a threat to the nation itself? is mass immigration a net gain or net loss for america in 2024? how do we balance our humanitarian impulses with practical and economic needs? do migrants suppress wages of the already strained middle and working class? what are the implications of a

porous border for our national security? what does a sensible border policy really look like? in 2024, should america closed its borders? in order to know who presented the better argument tonight, and i'm excited to introduce our speakers in a minute, we need to tell us where you said right now before the debate begins. so i am going to ask all of you to pull out your funds -- phones, and you will text that number right there on the screen. text the word,is, vote1 to the number of the screen, which is 626-659-4180. you will text a if you believe, yes, the united states should shut the border or two for no.

you will get a prompt with a proposition. you will text just the letter a if you believe that, yes, united states should shut the border, and you will text b for no. ok, while we tabulate the votes, let me take a minute to introduce four brilliant people debating tonight's proposition who truly need no introduction. arguing in the affirmative, they yes, that united states should shut its borders is none other than ann coulter. [applause] ann is the author of 13 new york times bestsellers, including "adios america."

welcome, ann. [applause] and i should say from the outset savior booing for the presidential debate. joining ann is sohrab ahmari. he spent 10 years as an op-ed editor at the new york post and before that as an editor at the wall street journal where she was my colleagues. he is an immigrant from iran and his latest book is called "tyranny inc." please welcome sohrab ahmari. [applause] and now to the opposing side. each to argue that, no, the united states should not shut its borders is nick gillespie.

[cheers] nick is editor at large and reason, the libertarian magazine a free minds and free markets and a host of the reason interview with nick gillespie, and to is a phd in english literature, so please do not hold that against him. please welcome nick gillespie. >> i studied american literature. bari: thank you so much. last but not least we have cenk uygur, a host of the young turks and cofounder of the justice democrats, author of "justice is coming," a proud american born in turkey but nevertheless ran for president in 2024, which i say if a man facing ada charges across four criminal cases get a run for president, why not an unnatural citizen?

please welcome cenk. we have an unbelievable lineup for you tonight, so let me explain the rules. each debater will get a five minute opening statement explaining their position on the motion. we will start with ann, then to nick, then to sohrab, then to cenk. that will be followed by short rebuttals, and we will mix it up, hopefully there will not be any blood, then at the end there will be two minute closing statements. let's take a look at the initial polling results please. interesting. should the united states shut its borders? 71% are with sohrab and ann for yes. 29% are with nick and cenk. i guess we should pack it in.

a lot of faith in everyone here up on stage tonight. let's see who can change the most minds over the course of the next hour, and one last note before we begin, and it is as much for all of you as it is for our debaters. we are here tonight to have a real discussion. on this topic especially it is the easiest thing in the world to recuse one side of this debate of bigotry, xenophobia, and racism, and it is equally true on the other side stands accused of lunacy and stealing the electrical system. the next hour or so, we will not do that. if you want to mudslinging, you can turn on cable. is everyone ready? be it resolved should the united states shut its borders? ann coulter, you are first up. a bell will ring when you have

one minute left. [cheers and applause] ann: i have a lot more than six minutes, but i will try to keep it to that. there is a reason to millions of people are trying to come to our country, but if they come we will not be our country anymore. they are leaving their failed cultures and coming to a very successful culture. what is a culture other than the people who are in it? crossing -- dump them in the rio grande, bring iraqis over, dump them in the rio grande, send them back. a culture is the people who live in it. we are more than just a landmass, or the indians would've written the declaration of independence, built new york city, put a man on the moon. it is like taking an expensive

one bottle and pouring vinegar into it and pretending it is the same one bottle. the culture is the people. there are 8 billion people in the world, and most of them would love to come here. 4 billion of them live on less than $10 a day. move them all into the confines of a landmass of our country? of course, we are going to have to choose, so how do we choose? i think we should choose people who were better than us. people were better looking, taller, smarter. let's get our average up. and for the first three hundred years, which i will explain in a moment, that is how our country works, because -- but we cannot do that and ignore -- anymore because teddy kennedy needed a legacy.

apparently our entire country is about improving the self-esteem of this one irish catholic family. [laughter] his family pride was civil-rights for the entire world, thus we got the 1965 civil rights act. it sounds like the belief of some hippie called, every poor person in the world has the right to come here, and we have to take care of them. not only does every poor person get to come, but they get to bring their cousins. in america, your family is your spouse and your kids. nephews, third cousin, brother-in-law, that is third world stuff. this is not family reunification. we are doing tribal reunification. the difference between pre-1965, post-1965 immigration is huge. we like legal immigrants or they

get weepy about their grandfathers at ellis island, thing or talking about the difference between pre-1970 and post-1970. that is how long it took the arctic again. pre-1970 immigrants were better than us. there were more educated, wealthier, they bought more houses. oh boy, post-1970 immigrants are not that at all. they are far more likely to be on welfare. there are a lot of ways to fiddle with the numbers, but one of the main ones is counting anchor babies as americans. most of our welfare is dedicated to poor people with children. an illegal runs across the border, eight months pregnant, drops a baby and starts collecting will figure on that anchor baby who is about to bring in her whole village. that can be counted as an american citizen on welfare, so what you want to look at is

foreign-born family versus native u.s.-born family, and when those comparisons are made, the foreign-born family, 54% collecting government assistance. u.s.-born family, and that includes all of the immigrants that have come in since the 1965 civil rights act, 34%. the reason for this and the reason we did not have to have any rules before on this -- if there was an ethnic preference for the countries that founded and built this country, but you did not have to have rules. it was hard to get here. you have to have some stamina to even get here, but moreover there was no welfare. that is the crucial turning point. it was a double whammy in 1965. we will have the great society programs and we will open up immigration to the third world. in fact, prefer the third world.

pre-1970 immigrants, ellis island immigrants, 30% of them went home because they could not make it in america. no welfare. are you going to starve or are you going to go home? 60% of southern italians went home. if you is to went home with the english, scandinavian, and the jews. that was like 5% to 10%, so now we are just bringing in the poorest people of the world with the most descendant -- dissonant cultures, and we have collective lines run the media and the democrats, republicans want the cheap labor. the media it will tell you about every immigrant valedictorian but will not tell you about the child rate, the drunk driving, the human smuggling, about the slavery they are bringing in.

we fight a war, it ended, and now we are getting it back. bari: thank you so much, ann. next up is nick gillespie, arguing, no, you can essay should not shut its borders. because ann coulter got an extra 50 seconds, i will give it to you or whoever needs it. nick: i am the token libertarian on the panel, so that means you probably think i would talk most about economics of drugs, and you would be right. in 1902, the nativist publication judge which i am pretty sure ann had a call them and showed a horseshoe suspended from a magnet that said american prosperity, and then all sorts of stereotypical bad immigrants. these were chinese, turks,

probably persian, french actresses, bob throwing italians, russian peasants, european looking people carrying bags that just read filth on them were being sucked into the magnet, and the caption of the magnet just said the only bad feature of our prosperity. we are a nation of immigrants, but we have never, ever been comfortable with the ones currently streaming across our borders, and it is fascinating to hear ann talk about how the jews were pretty good as pre-1970 people. jews were locked out of this country to such a degree that millions perished during the holocaust because they could not emigrate to america, including anne frank. that was the law that teddy kennedy amended, so we have never been comfortable with the people streaming across our borders. it was true in 1902, it is true

in 2024. last year saw with the ap called a record number of illegal crossings into america from mexico. that is not the whole story. since the majority of the people in the country illegally do not bum rush the southern border. they come here illegally and they do not leave. southeast indians are the third largest category of people illegal in america. is that your vision of an illegal american? but what is strange about these invaders is what do they do when they get here? they break into our country and then they picked our crops, prepare our meals, cut our lawns, clean our toilets, and babysit our children. what strange armies of the night. at the same time we are creating a panic on the border, and we need to do with that, we have made it harder and harder for

people to emigrate legally. over 9 million people are waiting to get green cards, and the wait time is skyrocketed over the past few decades from months to decades. immigrants want to come to america now for the same reason they did 100 years ago my grandparents came here from shithole countries as donald trump talks, from italy and ireland. they come here because of american prosperity, and they do not come here to destroy american prosperity. they come here to enjoy it and expand it and make it rich and new again. illegal immigrants are not bringing drugs or crime. illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes than native born americans. illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes than native born americans. immigrants have a higher labor force participation rate and are more likely to start a business than native born americans. immigrants and their children started 45% of today's fortune

500 companies. at they are stealing from us, aren't they? even anti-immigrant economists assert that immigrants onnet are a boom because they expand markets and fill labor gaps. the congressional budget office is said the deficit going forward it will be $1 trillion less over the next decade to because immigrants have expanded the economy, so what should we do? we should create a system that allows more people to come here legally and enter through the front door. nobody can ship the border. donald trump could not shut america's borders. i am quoting, he slashed legal immigration to make it harder to get a green card or visa even as he failed to stop migrants from crossing the border. what people who want to shut the borders want is prohibition,

this time for people. prohibition was passed when reeves to go at the same time the first widescale exclusionary act against europeans were passed driven by the same things, fear of immigrants like catholics and jews from southern europe. within a couple of years americans were drinking more liquor than they had before prohibition was passed. we get the same thing with border control. things have tripled since the creation of the department of homeland security, and now money being spent on border security is tripled, and we seem to have less of it. let's create an orderly and deregulated and growing market for immigration just like we ultimately did for beer and booze. let people who went to live and work peacefully here, do so. we can vet them and have them apply in their own countries, and then conjured to where they want to be rather than getting clogged up at the southern border or any place in

particular. allow individuals, churches, businesses and nonprofits to sponsor them. we should tighten up that. our national debt is out of control. we should to be building a wall around the welfare state, not the united states. we need to legalize immigrants pulled here by the magnitude of our prosperity and get on with the business of building the future of our country rather than trying to restore a tattered imagined past. thank you. [cheers and applause] bari: next up is sohrab ahmari arguing, yes, the united states should shut its borders. sohrab: thank you all for being here. i will tell you two things about myself that are pertinent to this debate. the first is that i in legal

immigrant to the united states and abroad america by choice. the second is i believe we must shut down the border due to the mass movement of millions of low-wage economic migrants masquerading as asylum-seekers. why do i take this position? years ago i started reading right wing reactionary pundits and thinkers. i'm thinking of people like ann here. in one of her books years ago ann wrote many of the worse off native born americans are heard by immigration, especially immigration from latin america because these immigrants have less education than the average u.s. worker, they increase the supply of less skilled labor driving on the wages of the worst paid americans. low skilled immigrants threaten to unravel our safety net. it wasn't ann coulter who said that, it was a progressive economist paul krugman writing in the new york times in 2006. maybe i could fuse, but i

definitely remember the reaction that began in wrote sink this country suffering from immigrant indigestion. it is time to call the hold on this grand rush, which over floods the labor market resulted in lowering the standard of living. the excepted immigration is against the interest of the messes of all races and nationalities in our country. buchanan's rhetoric could really sizzle, right? it was not pat buchanan who said that. it was a philip randolph, thick african-american labor and civil rights leader who organized the march on washington at which dr. king delivered his i have a dream speech. ok, i am sure i will get this next one right. it was steve bannon who wrote a policy memo noting that effectively regulated immigration policy establishes limits on the number of immigrants. moreover these limits must be strictly enforceable, and he also said no low or unskilled

low-wage migrants should be admitted. oops, i am wrong in this account too. it was not bennett who wrote those words. the words come from a 1995 report on the of immigration reform chaired by jordan. she was a protege of president lyndon b. johnson, the first african-american woman elected to the state senate since reconstruction and the first ever southern black woman elected to the u.s. house of representatives. it notice a pattern. today's progressives and pro-business libertarian donors like nick claim immigration is something that could only be motivated by reactionary racism, put into recently opposing the importation of low-wage migrants was the consensus position of the democratic party and the labor movement. why? because an earlier generation of progresses understood that low-wage migration is one of the chief ways by which large

employers play nation's population 10 jurisdictions against each other to lower labor costs. it is called corporate arbitrage. progressives once understood this type of immigration undercuts the wages of lacrosse -- low class working people and hinders productivity growth and thus our prosperity as a nation. in this country going back to our founding, some employers have always preferred to have workers they can utterly dominate, and that is what you get by admitting millions of people who are vulnerable to their employers. who cannot speak the language, collect the power to organize. that is why libertarians andkoch brother types have always supported ob to borders. what is curious about our time is that this is become the progressive position, but maybe it is not so strange. low-wage migrant labor it sustains the lifestyle of people in my class and maybe people in your class, upper middle-class urban workers who like to

pretend we can afford the lifestyle of the old gentry with nannies and gardeners, servants on the cheap, and we can afford such a lifestyle by importing millions of vulnerable, hyper exploitable workers into the homeland. the difference is the old exploiters were open about what they wanted out of slave or a near slave labor, which today's gentry wraps their position. be honest about it, you are supporting massive exploitation. or you can join many progressive labor leaders of the past supporting tonight's motion. we must shut down the border to corporate arbitrage and exploitation. thank you. [cheers and applause] bari: five minutes on the clock. last up is cenk uygur.

cenk: wonderful to be here and to be with you all. love the food. who puts fried egg on chili? i will tell you who. geniuses. i've got news for you guys, everyone here is descendants from immigrants, so that is true even if you are native american. you started in central asia where my folks also originally started. the turks went west, you went east, and here you are. on the mayflower literally every one of those folks were undocumented immigrants. where are your papers. you did not come here legally if you came from the mayflower. obviously different rules at the time. guys, we need immigrants. literally the entire country, 100% of us are descendants of immigrants. to say that we will not do any more immigrants, that is

preposterous. the only question is how are we going to do immigration? not whether we are going to do immigration. if you think it is a great idea to stop anybody else from coming in or going out, close off, let's state what we are now, this culture is great. good news for you, the ming dynasty agreed almost 500 years ago. that is why they burned all of their ships to the ground. it was called the treasure fleet , and the chinese ships at the time were so dominant, there were 10 times the size of the european ships. that is why there were economic giants 500 years ago, and after they buried their ships and did not have anybody going in or out, eight 200 year massive slump, and it destroyed their dynasty. because closing yourself off from the rest of the world is a recipe for disaster, so let's

have a realistic conversation about how do we get people in here and do with the right way? i know that they were real concerns about immigration, especially undocumented immigration, so let's talk about which of those concerns are legitimate and illegitimate. of course, you will not be surprised to find out i think a lot of it is illegitimate. i will surprise you with a couple of opinions i think are legitimate. on illegitimate, oh my god, they are criminals and rapists, said the guy who was indicted 91 times and proven in court to of done sexual assault, so there is a criminal and a rapist. it is the guy who said that comment. that is just one anecdote and one awful human being. but when you look at large, there is a stone cold fact that native born citizens, you are the most likely to be criminals. so undocumented immigrants are half as likely to commit crime

as natural born americans, and if you are in my group and sohrab's group of documented immigrants, we are the safest of all. we are a quarter. natural born americans are four times more likely to commit crime then we are. we are just little teddy bears. the gangs are coming, you watch fox. ms 13. there is documentation, and the number of people coming in coming from games are 0.09%, so that is a mirage. it is literally not true that they are more criminal than the average american. they are taking our jobs. are they? we literally have record low unemployment. both under trump and biden except for covid obviously, we had really good low unemployment. and if they took all of our jobs, how come unemployment is

not skyhigh? we have one at the lowest unemployment rates in the whole world. who are you kidding? did you all just come from the meat packing plant and they took your jobs? no. did you all just come pick lettuce and come to the majestic together? no, they are taking the jobs that america will do. bush in 2006 that we will get these dastardly undocumented immigrants. they did several rates, and this happens every time. this one was in fillmore, georgia. they go out and take out all of the immigrants. it was a small town about 1000 people and once they took out the undocumented immigrants, the only plant in town collapsed and the entire town collapsed. that is why they do not do it anymore and even trump did not do it, because it is a terrible idea. the legitimate part is that,

yes, when people came to the border, it was a mess, and that is not fair to the border patrol, and did fact when governor abbott first decided to do the buses to the northern cities, i surprised a lot of people when i said that is a really good idea. politically it was a good idea, but on top of that, i said why should the border states carry all of the pain? why shouldn't it also go to others? if you really believe in immigration, then you should not have any problem with it. what you can say that. it turns out you don't want them either, right? why am i telling you that when i am pro-immigration? the problem, guys -- i get it, when you put a bunch of new people into a new place, will sometimes crime go up? is it because of the nature of who they are? we know from the stats it is definitely not the nature of who they are.

it is because we do not have a rational immigration system. the immigrants are coming, the invasion. do you know how many immigrants we lead in as a percentage of the company -- country? 0.2%. if those same people came in in an undocumented -- in a documented way and we got them a pathway to jobs in health, then they would be milling around in chicago and new york and whatever. i am way out of time. so much more to say. bari: thank you. [cheers and applause] just earthquake -- just a quick housekeeping note, if someone could turn up the heat. i feel like we are in a meat packing plants. let's do it quick round-robin of

rebuttals, and as a prompt, nick accused you of nativism but also a nostalgia for an imagined past, the pre-1970 people were smarter, taller, better looking. are you nostalgic for an imagined past and pick up on any arguments. ann: it is simply effective pre-1970 immigrants were not being so rooted by the welfare state. they went back. also -- they act like we are teaching cnut -- we are king cnut. the people who populated this country, this country, a side note. i don't know if it makes you happy to say we are a nation of

immigrants, but it is not true unless you mean it in the sense that we are all descended from adam and eve did you could not immigrate here before there was an established society, and establish american economy, than to became the country and thought the revolution, and as of 1990 half of americans still trace their ancestry back to those original americans. it was not america before they got here. nick: i don't know what to say to that. because the fact is 3/4, four out of five people on this panel do not trace their heritage back to the revolution or anything like that. we trace our heritage back to the that were passed that kept out our ancestors at a particular moment in time. in 1924, it was over if you were

italian or jewish coming from europe. bari: what is were cut off when you are thinking about an immigrant? ann: i don't care -- i am just saying this business about we are a nation of immigrants that we are all descended from immigrants is simply not true. nick: it is true. that is defiance of reality. ann: fdr turned to ship load of jews away. does that mean we have to wreck our country over this? it is one of the percent not true that immigrants commit fewer crimes. there is one famous cato study with a at texas, and they counted immigrants, only illegal immigrants who had been caught and fingerprinted by the border police, because with their first putting them in prison that is the only thing they know. wait a year, and they find out all of those others are also illegals, so they were

attempting a citizen someone who could not already be identified as an illegal. look at the most wanted list in places like los angeles or any hotbed of immigration. look at one place, and this is why i wrote "adios america." give us a breakdown of immigrants, legal immigrants, illegal immigrants and citizens in our prisons, arrested, convicted. they will not tell us that, and my side is the side asking for it. [indiscernible] prisons need to know the ethnicity of those in prison because of gang fights. they keep records and look at the records. it is the top 20 groups in new york are all from latin america. nick: very quickly, we would have less crime in america if

the candidate family had been kept out. but i want to point out about crime and things like that. first off, even with the recent increases that happened during the pandemic when immigration stopped in the country, we saw a rise in crime, so you would think a legals not coming into the country and crime rising, that is peculiar. what i was suggesting that and was living in the past, the crime rates in america right now are much lower than they were 20 or 30 years ago, so to focus on crime when we are talking about immigration seems to me to be a gigantic red herring. bari: i would like to put you guys the issue of the wage depression, because i imagine you guys have different perspectives on it. cenk is a perspective -- progressive, and nick is a libertarian. is it true? nick: it depends.

as a populist progress if i cannot stand the corporate world we live under. part of the recent we have this problem is because companies want cheap labor. and that is part of the reason why our vegetables are so cheap and our food is cheap, etc. if we had an efficient system, and they would have to pay people more, and they do not want that. almost everything in this country is because of campaign contributions, and when corporations give money at the politicians do what they are told, and in this case they are told to not fix it. at the same time, what i have seen, and as a progressive i care a lot about higher wages for americans is that none of their fear mongering came to pass. we did not have huge unemployment. we did not lose our jobs. wages were not related to that at all, and you have seen the

meta-studies, and they show they are not related. the thing wages are related to, is there a higher minimum wage? corporate power. from 1938 to 1978 productivity was skyhigh, and are wages matched it. then the supreme court legalized bribery and allowed corporate contributions. from then on your productivity soared but wages flatlined. it is because of corporate power. it is nothing to do with immigrants, and waves of immigrants have proven that to be the case. sohrab: everyone just vaguely suggested studies, and i went to go through some of them in a granular way. i had a few things from the other side. one is americans just will not do certain jobs. think about this. in the sectors where immigrants

are most represented, especially illegal immigrants, you are talking about dry cleaning and laundry, building maintenance, apparel and manufacture, landscaping, private household work. in each of these sectors, labor is about 20%, so that means there are plenty of legal migrants or american domestic workers working these jobs. it is not true that we will not do them, so when farmers, ranchers, and developers complain they cannot find american workers, with a mean is they cannot find american workers willing to work serf like conditions. if that is the case, why do disney and some tech firms have their own current domestic workforce trained there visa replacements and ushered them out of the way? those americans were happy to work those jobs. in all of the areas where we

have low migrant populations, certain black neighborhoods and places like appalachia, you will find none migrants doing the jobs that migrants do in high migration areas, so it is not true americans do not do certain jobs. i was the only one who kept to the five minutes. [laughter] bari: he is so prepared, it is breaking my heart. sohrab: we all benefit as consumers, it is good for us as consumers. so if lowering the prices of goods and services by lowering wages including through labor arbitrage is such a great idea, why not help all americans just constantly lower their wages, not just the ones of migrant labor. why not legalize child labor? it would definitely lower consumer prices.

they say we all benefit as consumers. no, that is a statistical trick. some americans make gains, but they treated as gains while all americans. if you hire a serf, how do i as a consumer benefit from that? you are the one to cut your house cleaned at a discount because of a vulnerable migrant, so why don't we generalize the harms to workers, and that is the noncollege majority most at risk by illegal immigration and off shoring? those are the most at risk from these practices. if we generalize the benefits as consumers, why don't we generalize that we think about the harms to those classes and the noncollege majority in this country. [applause] nick: there is a broad consensus that cheap labor hurts non-high school graduates in the labor

force, which is a shrinking and small part of the labor force, so that would be a place where if low skilled, low-wage workers have problems, and you help them. you help them retrain, and help them with the bonus payments and things like that. when you talk about immigrants acting like serfs, ask them why they come here? jimmy john's in texas is paying people $20 an hour to make sandwiches. that is not slavery, serfdom, anything terrible, and you can ask about illegal immigrants who come to the border, they get caught and gets into mexico. are they coming back again to because they want to be exploited and they want to live in poverty, or it is because what they have in america is better than that? they are not being exploited. they are building a future for themselves. sohrab: barbara jordan, a

democrat -- in the late 90's, but the principal does not change. if you have conditions in which he was arriving on a dollar a day, of course whatever you put before people, the jobs they find here is advantageous to them. that is understandable, but the fact is what we are saying is we are telling our native workers that they have to get used to serf like conditions because you have a class of workers who will not go to osha if they face unsafe conditions, and that have been terrifically a meatpacking. they will not go to the national labor relations board when there was wage theft. bari: i am shocked national security came up and no one's statement, and one of the things that is known is that people are coming from all over the world. at their coming from china,

russia, syria, egypt. they are coming from everywhere, and we don't know who those people are. how much of the concern is that for you on this stage? cenk: zero, none. let's talk about reality. bari: that to me seems like to think that is radicalized a lot of people on this issue. cenk: they are empirically incorrect. first of all, fox news with demagogue and go there was a run. there is a muslim guy coming in. why don't you just tell me you are a big. that does improve a god damn thing. there was a prayer rug, and it turns out there were not. having terrorists come to the border and done a massive lot against us? to my knowledge, zero.

do you know how many people have done mass shootings in america? tons and tons and tons. are we kidding ourselves? the mass shootings that have been every single day, the massacre after massacre, and that is all of us. the people who live in america. if you were talking about national security, the real threats come on planes, there are spies. it is bipartisan. eric swalwell, it is true. nick: that, by the way, is work that in america it will not do. [laughter] [applause] cenk: the chinese spy that was caught at mar-a-lago. bari: so you have zero concern? ann: i have a few that were done

by terrorists. 9/11. cenk: did they come across the border? ann: i don't care if they come across the border. san bernardino, and it is hard to figure these things out because one of the san bernardino terrorist as well as the pulse nightclub terrorists were born in america, so the media describe them as american men. it is the boy next door, and did this happen? homegrown. the boston embalmers, and they had some uncle some place you came in. -- every terrorist attack you can think of. the times square bomber. the first world trade center bombing. they were illegal immigrants under the agricultural adjustment act in 1965 immigration law that allowed

agricultural workers to stay. inf knew 90% were fake and left them in any way. those are a few. cenk: literally none of those people crossed the border. literally none. ann: it is worse that they come in legally. >> you were talking about national security concerns on the southern border. the 9/11 bombers who are front of mind on all of this got visas and flew first class. they were not coming across the border. in any case, this is a reason to have a working pathway where you can vet people as opposed to a rush of people that are coming at the same time and overwhelming any kind of process. if it starts in their home

countries, you could have a more manageable border and check people at the door rather than a concert. ann: they were vetted. the boston marathon bombers, san bernardino. welcome. nick: now you are talking about documented immigrants. i came in the same way. my uncle. it goes straight to your opening statement. he started a company and hired hundreds of americans and help the american economy. i started a company. you mentioned two -- sacramento and the boston bombers. they did not come across the border. how about the hundreds of other terrorist attacks? synagogue shootings? pittsburgh? the shooting in el paso? literally thousands of shootings and you have two document it and

on the cross the border illegally. >> nor mcdonald -- norm macdonald, he said if a muslim explodes a dirty bomb that kills 50 million people, what i'm worried about is the backlash of the peaceful muslim faith. yes. right now, we have not had cases of people coming to the southern border and endangering the homeland but it takes one for it to happen and then you will see this country imposed genuinely unreasonable solutions. if the security threat at the border is not addressed that you will get the ugly solution. [applause] i do not want the ugly solution. bari: earlier in this conversation, ann suggested we should bring in people better than us.

trump said something similar two days ago. we should bring in people from nice countries like denmark, norway, switzerland. they have something in common. you and i -- when my ancestors came here they were not considered white. you come from a country, iran, that is not considered a nice country. if you could wave a magic wand, what is your ideal policy? sohrab: if you listen to ann and have a certain point of view you might think -- i want to go back to the barbara jordan commission. a really important document at the time commissioned by the clinton administration. she more or less said what ann said. we want skills based immigration. cases where there is a need in the labor market rather than just flooding the country and harming americans without high school educations or just a high school education. she mentioned reunification

methods. it has to be limited to the nuclear family. that is what barbara jordan said. prioritize the nuclear family if you are going to have reunification rather than cousins. i think a lot of what ann said i would sign up for as well. i will tell you one more thing. i came through family reunification. i am a chain migrant. someone might say how dare you say other people should not receive entry the same way. when i would say is now my allegiance is to the well-being and common good of this country and not to the general class of potential migrants out there who are clamoring to get in. [applause] bari: let's go to cenk and then i want to talk about politics on

this issue. news broke that president biden is looking at it executive order that could take hold as soon as this month that would limit asylum-seekers from entering the country. a very different position than where his presidency began. in the first hours of his presidency, he was rolling back trump's policies. nick: to his credit, he had no idea what he was thinking then. [laughter] [applause] bari: cenk, jump in but i want you to touch on the politics of it. there is a fabulous story in the free press a few weeks ago that talked about seven lawsuits being brought in the city of chicago, almost all by people of color, including from a dei consultant on the south side who said they are giving things away to migrants that we have been deprived of in poor black

communities. [applause] cenk: i agree with her and i will come back to that. you will not get me to defend joe biden too much, i ran against him. [laughter] i will come back to that, too. when i said the national security threat is zero, there were gasps in the room. the debate concluded with, what if there is one later? that literally happened. on this idea, the bad countries are sending people in. the irish and the italians and the jews were coming in, do you think they came from amazing countries? at the time the irish were starving. they had the great potato famine. they were so poor. the jews were poor and lived in the worst parts of new york. we want to close that off. if we had closed enough to those immigrants, it would not be the america we know and love today. it might not even be america.

the jewish people driven out of germany came to america and we won world war ii because of them. if we had done ann coulter's strategy at the time, we might not even exist. ann: it was not ann coulter's strategy, it was pre-1911. [applause] >> between 1923 and 1965 you had a period of restriction when you have the highest union density in this country. the 30 glorious years. it coincided with -- not relatively, totally conflating -- cenk: corporate power become supersized in 1978 after supreme court decisions. we had a golden period, plenty of immigrants in different parts

of that period. it does not john with that, -- it does not jive without, the story were telling. what we were doing so well was we had power in democracy, the american people. if you cut off all of these countries because of an arbitrary 1970's rule, inconvenient because everyone came pre-1970 is 98% of the country. the new immigrants are not good because they are coming from really poor countries and they are not helping. bari: 30 seconds. cenk: if you can see it it does not affect employment at all -- record low unemployment. sohrab: preeminent economists, the relationship between labor unions and immigration said.

membership and american unions has over time moved inversely with trends of immigration inflows. always reported illegal immigrants to the authorities. he said the illegal aliens are doubly exploited. they are farmworkers and because they are powerless to defend their interests. if there were no illegals used to break our strikes, we could win those battles. nick: make them legal and suddenly they are not under the boot -- sohrab: it becomes harder to organize. nick: private sector unionization peaked in the early to mid 1950's. it is a product of industrialization. that era is over.

america's workers are gaining in wages. the problem was chicago -- and chicago city services -- is not illegal immigrants, it is generations of terrible city government. [applause] it is completely out of control. it breaks my heart when eric adams says we cannot handle 50,000 illegal immigrants coming into new york or something like that. you are telling me a city of 8.5 million people -- unlike those people, i have never been to martha's vineyard. i would like to get on a bus sometime. [laughter] bari: i do not think you could take a bus there. nick: we do need to restrain welfare spending in general. there is no question in a place like new york because of a court ruling, there is a right to shelter that does not extend to

illegal or a silent seekers, it is all people. it is one of the reasons why new york state and especially new york city has trouble competing against places like texas and florida. ann: can i respond to that? you can write file chicago and new york as the government. welfare, after you repeal the law of gravity. that is not happening. i can think of two counterexamples. minnesota, the cleanest state of the union, scandinavians, they dumped 100,000 somalis on them. they are having all kinds of child rape, human smuggling, credit card skimming. the large estate in the union, california. paradise, the most gigantic, wealthy, upper-middle-class and california had figured it out.

they had a balanced budget every year. 20 million people move in and there is a deficit that rivals most of the rest of the world. $60 billion. it is preposterous. they cannot pay for themselves. it actually does make a difference bringing in a lot of third world people. i also did not say specific countries. what i said is we do not have sink or swim so we do need to have some way to try to skim the cream of the world like we used to and we sure are not doing it. bari:bari: i want to clarify. if there was a physicist or some ai genius and they were coming from a country that was not scandinavia -- ann: of course. what the other side does is cite that fortune 500 thing. peter, elon musk, they cite a few really, really -- from south

africa, russia, and then, ok, we get 10 of those and 20 million leaf blowers. [laughter] [applause] bari: we are unbelievably running low on time. before we go to closing statements, what i would like to do, the propositions night was should america shut its borders? you can interpret that in two ways? should america solve the problem at the southern border or should america stop immigration at all? i would love for each of you to each take one minute. if you are president of the united states -- it could happen, there might be an open convention --what would you do? what is sensible immigration policy and what does it look like? i do not think anyone on the stage would defend what the southern border is happening right now. cenk: number one, i would hire a

lot more border patrol. number two -- these are relatively easy to do. we waste so much money in this country. that is something that all of us want to do. that would stem some of the tide. but you need that. the second part that you need is for us to do a reasonable, sane, immigration policy for documented immigrants so we get all the new blood in. it is easy to look back and say i would have let jewish people in. i would have let elon musk in. i would not have let anyone else in. you do not know who elon musk is. you do not know who will be amazing. we do let in far too little documented immigrants. once we increase the size, if you cross the border after and we give you plenty of opportunity to do with the right way, you are one and done. once you cross the border

illegally and we catch you, you can never return. that is a fair trade. the last thing i would do is a marshall plan for latin america. not because it is the moral thing to do but it is stunningly successful. when we did for germany, japan, turkey and greece, we turned our greatest enemies into our greatest allies, they became -- a trading partner for us. the number one reason people are coming is economic desperation. people are coming here from mexico, honduras and guatemala. now, a huge flood of immigrants -- the same under trump and biden -- people are coming from venezuela and colombia. time to replace -- no. they were desperate and had to come here. help those countries. bari: a marshall plan for latin america, more border patrol

agents and more asylum judges. nick: the libertarian in me would never forgive myself if i did not put up a marshall plan as one of the most oversold ideas in history. the german economic miracle took place after the controls put on by the u.s. and the allies on the german economy were lifted. bari: our border. nick: make it easier to come into the country legally. do more of the processing in the home countries. and then you will have people walking through the door, showing papers. you can go to a staples in america and get a tsa pre-check. we can come up with ways of helping to process more people who do not have criminal records or diseases or whatever is worse than the president has. bring them here. forbid them from getting welfare

and things like that and things will thrive. that is what happened in the past and what would happen again. bari: beautiful. thank you [applause] sohrab: agriculture took longer to -- in the south for a long time they could rely on free labor. likewise, we have the same process going on. just having a giant output gdp because we have a lot of people, that is not rational prosperity. we could bring in 100 million people and just give them an old-school agriculture without machines and that would localize gdp growth. it is not the kind of laborsaving technology that pushes our economy to the next stage. as long as we have cheap labor, our economy will not go to the next stage.

the next industrial revolution, whatever it may be. it is hindered because there is no incentive to use laborsaving technology. what i would do is close off low-wage migration,. only skills-based migration. i would stop the mockery we have made of the asylum process, where we treat economic migrants and call them asylum-seekers. it is violating international law in a way because that is a clear definition of what a refugee really is. 80% of these people at the very least -- i have traveled with them as a reporter -- they are not asylum-seekers. the vast majority. [applause] bari: thank you. ann: one thing i totally agree with but i would say 100% of the asylum-seekers are frauds. it is the worst way to get people into our country.

fantastic, you left your country, why don't you come here? if you come from a successful country, you can never get asylum. foresight and wisdom, you have an altogether. no, you are out. venezuela, i kept reading in the new york times how they were all cheering for chavez -- i know it is now maduro. you promise not poor, i will steal from the rich and give it back to you. the new york times is excited that they can finally get communism that works and they are waving their red hats and he tells them to move on to the golf course. they appropriated all of these farms, golf clubs and told the poor to move on and they are out waving their red hats for chavez. now they have wrecked their country so they want to come

here, collect our welfare instead. know asylum cases. i have one other point. most of these laws are already on the books. even if you qualify for asylum under the law, you are supposed to be held in detention. you are supposed to be turned away at our border right now. if you could possibly become a public charge -- no, instead we are giving them free iphones. here is your free housing. you cannot get in if you go through another country where you could get asylum. that is another thing about the humanitarian relief. . why do they always come here? can't we help them where they are or a nearby country? they have to pass through mexico to get here and by law mexico takes refugees to automatically they should be turned away. there are many more but a third one that is obviously being ignored is the have to show they have other vaccinations. nobody is being stopped.

nobody is being turned away. not one of these allegedly asylum ease should be getting in at the border. what kind of laws do you write? you cannot write the laws you want because the people enforcing them will not enforce them. you need a total shutdown on immigration just to get our books in order. [applause] bari: many arguments tonight were well made. we will now go to closing statements and we will do it in reverse order. cenk i will start with you. two minutes on the clock. closing statements. cenk: guys, i think there are some on the left who make it racial about immigration and i do not like that. there is something that is driving this visceral reaction to immigrants when it is not crime or employment or any of the other things that are sensible reasons.

that is the resistance to change. it is tough. i am politically progressive but by nature i am conservative. i did not like it when they put a walmart in my hometown because it was new and different. i did not want it. i understand that reaction. but we cannot get into it. every time the country has closed its borders, it has closed itself to the world and it has been greatly counterproductive. when we talk about culture, what is our culture? our culture is not something that was created, whether it was in 1770 or 1970. it is an amalgamation of all of us. what is the most americans think? pepperoni pizza. that is from italy. bagels and lox. that is what is great about america. it made us stronger, not weaker.

we do not want to let the poor in. my dad came to this country would literally $1 in his pocket. you do not know who is going to make it. that is what is beautiful about this country. people are desperately trying to give their families a better life. do you know what that guy will do who went through that perilous journey and risk his life to get here? he will work really hard. he came for the hope, for his family. i do not want them breaking the law. i do not wanted out of control system like we have now. but if we are open-minded enough and open hearted enough, we will have the country that we all love and care for that we have today. if we had gone with the closed border system, he was a 21-year-old syrian, unacceptable, we cannot have him, he was poor, that was steve

jobs' dad and would have cost ourselves $1 trillion. immigrants to this country are america and america is immigrants. if we stop that we are not america anymore. bari: thank you so much. [applause] sohrab: the last time i spent any significant amount of time in texas was in 2005-2007 when i was a teach for america schoolteacher in brownsville, texas. [applause] do not clap, because wait. [laughter] i came as a typical carpetbagger that i am here to rescue these people from their oppressed conditions. part of that, i published my first ever public op-ed in the brownsville herald opposing a tough border bill that had been floated in the house of

representatives at the time. i said something like there are no illegal people, there is no such thing as an illegal person, only aspiring migrants who are poised to transform our nation for the better. i ended it with the phrase -- not knowing in my twentysomething ignorance that cesar chavez was a ferocious opponent of mass migration of that kind. [laughter] i went to school the next day, i came in with pride thinking they will cheer me. all of my fellow teachers and 99% of the students were mexican-american and i thought they would put me on their shoulders. [laughter] they all hated the op-ed. [laughter] mr. gonzales, maybe he will catch this on c-span, mr. gonzales sat me down in his office and more or less that what is this? [laughter] why is it that employer lobbies

always favor higher rates of migration and oppose turns against illegal migration? why is it that today, 53% of hispanic americans favor immediate deportation of illegals? 70% favor tougher restrictions. these people are not racist. they just understand that the kind of mass migration we have now works for a narrow part of society but impoverish is the people who actually need help and the working class of this country have been battered not just by off shoring but massive migration which is the other form. you should oppose it. [applause] bari: nick gillespie. nick: i am happy to hear the new

hispanic/mexican students, barely new in this country, have taken on the tradition of hating their teacher. [laughter] it shows people assimilate. [laughter] that is something we did not talk about today. assimilation keeps happening. my italian grandparents were economic refugees. we should not talk about asylum-seekers or things like that. most people come here to make a better life, if not for them, their kids. my italian grandparents never spoke english. i never had a conversation with them yet they made america great. a few years ago the nativists congressman talked about channeling a dutch politician, saying you cannot see civilization with someone else's babies. my italian grandparents had two sons who fought in world war ii and korea and saved our civilization.

they change america, we change in reaction to them. they change us and it goes on. talking about pepperoni pizza, recently italian food after decades as the most popular cuisine in america was unseated by mexican food. there is nothing more american than that. if we shut our borders, we are shutting down what makes this country great, which is the constant state of becoming. we are a beacon to the world because people come here and they can do what they want as much as possible. the american dream is to come here and make a better life for yourself, your kids, your grandkids, even the ones you cannot talk to. trained to create a black market in people -- prohibition for people is terrible and it will destroy the electric pull of

that magnet which is american prosperity. do not shut the borders, keep them open and keep us growing. [applause] bari: ann coulter. ann: picking up on what sohrab said about his mexican classmates not wanting anymore illegal immigrants from mexico, duh, everyone who came here did not want to live in venezuela or mexico. by the way, you have already taken 1/3 of mexico. here is a thought experiment. if it makes no difference what they have done in their own countries and 1000 years, not establishing a stable government , why do we not just make everyone an american country and an american state? what our country be the same country it is? even though immigrants -- those

legal and illegal -- commit a boatload of crime. you can look at the prison records. look at immigrant hotspots. look at the real statistics. even though they collect a boatload of welfare and commit every terrorist attack. that is not the main point i'm making. it is about saving our country. we remember mexico throwing back the nazi war machine? know, they did nothing in world war ii. that was the united states of america. the united states of america has rescued the rest of the world from tsunamis, earthquakes, warlords and starvation. not by saying, hey, move-in! once this country is gone -- we are heading there fast -- it is lights out for the rest of the world. thank you. [applause] bari: ok.

i am not moving here to one side , i am moving so you can see the screen. it is time to see which side won tonight's incredible debate. again, just like in the beginning, plot your phones and text "vote" to the number on the screen. and then you will get the prompt. you will text a, yes, the u.s. should shut it border to vote for ann four sohrab, or vote for b, nick and cenk's sighed, keep the border open. while all of you vote, i want to extend some special thanks to the unbelievable team. whoa! i will do that again.

while everyone votes, i want to extend a special thanks to everyone on the team. i especially want to thank these people. a huge, huge unbelievable thanks to joey, isaac and ellie, who loaned me her rolex for the evening. it is my first one. without them, none of this would have happened. a big round of applause for all of them. [applause] while we wait for the votes to come in, i will do a quick lightning round of favorite american presidents and immigrant. ann: probably washington. sohrab: sdr -- fdr. nick: i have no favorite president. cenk: fdr.

bari: favorite immigrant to this country, legal or illegal. cenk: my dad. nick: my grandparents. sohrab: arnold schwarzenegger. [laughter] [applause] ann: i don't know. where is mariano rivera from? bari: if you could recommend a book to everyone in this room, what book would you recommend? nick: the guarded gate. a history of immigration restriction -- restrictionists. ann: it is banned everyplace, written by a french philosopher in the 1970's. it is a fictional book. i did not think french people could be funny.

it is very funny but very politically incorrect. sohrab: every book by someone who is a true lone star state treasure and national treasure, my friend michael, whose arguments are basically my cheat sheet. it is not just on immigration but overall a wonderful book. cenk: my book. justice is coming. [laughter] bari: we started the night with 71% of you voting yes, america should shut its borders and between 9% voting no. after tonight, let's find out where the results are. [applause] bari: wow. ok. i do not know who you are cheering for. should the u.s. shut its

borders? nick and cenk's 37% are with you. and and so -- ann and sohrab, 63%. [applause] bari: it is impossible to have these kinds of conversations. i want to commend everyone on the stage tonight. ann coulter, sohrab ahmari, nick gillespie and cenk. thank you so much and have a good night. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] bari: thank you so much. so good. ♪

♪ ♪