and is moderated by journalist bari weiss. >> the free and fire acknowledge that the subject this event might be sensitive to certain guests.

to be offended by something that is said tonight. in that case, please take this time to once again locate the exit nrest to you and walk right through it. and now, the free press debate. should the u.s. shut its borders? ♪ >> the whole world has comeme americans. americans are a land where people share what and work together. america has, and we have benefited. we are the people of america♪ >> all americans in every place of this country arebed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our [sho the united sta >> we call on at immigrants. >> the statue of liberty urges

us to welcome the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe >> but now record higher have created a crisis. todaymassachusetts. >> a only felt among the 2000 a mile divides the u.s. and mexico, but in cities and towns across mexico. >> it ain' responsibility to take care of everybody else. >> outrage, and i don't understand why our community was chosen. this was usually around 1000 people. >> has turned its back on new york city. >> the pushing some american cities to the brink is more buses arrived from texas. poll after poll that immigration is the number one issue in the upcoming presidential election. >> wall. >> americans left and right agreed that the system is broken, but how do we fixlot of folks think theremaybe 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. >>at the migrants as human beings. >> how do we humane? >> >> forour country and for those already living here. 's>> newcomers make the land of opportunity a better place to live. >> normal americans care about being americans. people have reason to alarmed by the sense of their own sovereignty. >> i love this country and want to defend the ideals t what does a sensible immigration policy look like? should we make it easier to come to our country? or should america shed its borders? ut its borders? ♪>> andree press' b[cheers and applause]

thank you so much. good evening, dallas. i ensure your in l.a., but in all seriousness i'm exwe have had such a warm welcome in dallas, but given my past few welcome means no active death threats, so thank you so much. and's debate would not be possible without the generosity ofnization -- of an organizathe foundation for individual rights and expression. yes. [cheers and applause] you care about free speech, and i imagine if you were heremong that number, if you believe that it is worth 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. live

in a culture obviously in which so many people havn itself. at the free press, we do not beliwe believe that the issues that ing about out loud in public and withoutwe believe that free speech makes free people, and free people deserve a free press. ie you. [cheers and applause] we believe in ope honest, good faith disagreements and in the power of, and that in the end is the point of debate, more important than the competition itself. ifight and have not yet become a subscriber to the free press, head over to fp.com after the debate and become a subscriber. begin this evening ke place in texas. the first one is about a 33-year-old namserrano who came to the u.s. christian's status was always llegally. when the family

country they had $100 to their name. then 2012 president obama passed daca and christian became one of more point 5 million dreamers permitted to stay in america. a few years ago christian an award-winning architectural design firm that ne 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 n rafael came to the u.s. his visa expired but he stayed in this coing around from job to job and living with his family in a mobile we are sitting right here. he was conviction when in december of laststoppe and brutally stabbed a 16-year-old high slcheerleader named elizabeth medina. broader -- daughter dead in the bathtub at their apartment. these artwo 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 the other half of the people will think of someone like , and that is important what has made this topic so impossible to so important to voters, and it is exactly wh 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 immigrants than any other country in the world. who lives here, every single person in this room at some point came from somewhere how many mayflower descendants do you really wife who is that home in l.a. slaving at home. hungary and poland, they emigrated boxers, laggards, and loan sharks, which is america story. now their granddaughtertist lesbian,

and i have to think this is what my ancestors came to this country forward. about how many and to lead into this country has world the na founding, but in the past few years as everyone here surely things have heated up to a new level, an's a surprise considering that unlawful attempts to cross the southern borderhigh of 2.5 one million last nearly five billion attempts to cross the border illegally happened in this stand-alone. we have and you can choose your video that comes to mind. ybe it is of mothers with babies shimmying wire for a better life. maybe it is caravans of migrants hima texas, or young men from who knows where bum rder patrol agent's. top issue for voters in the 2024election according to a recent wall street journal poll, more important than inflation, the economy itself. llup poll indicated

immigration is then voters' minds. 68 percent of americans including democrats disapprove of the president's handling of the border. this influx has made even progressive cities which themselves in sanctuaries, sending a line. less may, chicago mayor lori lightfoot said we have reached a breaking point state of emergency in her city. in september, new york city mayor eric adam said the influx of migrants will city. so which is it? are immigrant the lifeblood of the nation or a threat to the nati is mass immigration a n net loss for america in 2024? we balance our humanitarian impulses with practical and economic needs? do migrants suppress wages working class? what are the implications of a porouswhat does a sensible border policy really look like?

in 2024, shou in order to know who presented the better argument, and i'm excited to introduce our speakers in a minutee you said right now before the debate begins. to ask all of you to pull out your funds -- phones, and you will textnumber right there on the screen. text the vote1 to the number of the screen, which626-659-4180. you will text a if you believe, states should shut theyou will get a prompt with a proposition. t letter a if you believe that, yes, united statd shut the border, and you will text b no. ok, while we tabulate the votes

let me tintroductefour brilliant people debating tonight's proposition who truly need no introduction. arguing in the affirmative, they yes, borders is none other than anne] ann is the author of including "adios america." welcome, anna. and i should savey from the outset savior booing for the presidential debate. joining ann is sohrab ahmari. hent 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."

please welcome[applause] and now to the opposing side. each to argue that no, the united states should borders is nick gillespie. [cheers] nick is editor at largendazine a free minds and free markets and a host of the reason interview with nick and to is a phd in english literature, so please do not hold that against him. please welcome nick gillespie. >> i literature. bari: thank you so much.last but not least we have cenk , a host of the young turks and cofounder of the justice democrats, author of "just coming," a prborn in turkey but nevertheless ran for president in 2024, which a man facing ada

cases get a run for president, why[w citizen? please welcome cenk. we have an unbelievablen the lins. each debater will get a five minute opening statement explaining their position on the motion. we ann then to nick, then to sohrab: then to cenk. that will be followed by short rebuttals, and wehopefully there will not be any blood, then at the end there will be two minute closing statements. take a look at the initial polling results please. interesting. should the united states shut its borders? 71% are with sohrab and annyes. 29% are with nick and cenk. a lot of faith in everyone here tot. let's see who can change the most minds over the course of th hour, and one last note before we begin, anis as

much for all of you as it is for our debaters. here tonight to have a real discussion. it is the easiest thing in the world to recuse one side of this debate and racism, and it is equally true on the other side stands accused of lunacy and stealing the electrical system. e will not do that. if you want to, you can turn on cable. is everyone ready? resolved should the united states shut its? ann coulter, you are first up. a bell wil when you have one minute left. [cheeranann: i have a lot more than six minutethere is a reason to millions of people are trying to come to o but if they come we will not be our country anymore. their failed cultures and coming to a very successf culture. what is a culture other than the people who are in it?

crossing -- grande, sa 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. taking an expensive one bottle a vinegar into it and pretending it is the same one bottle. culture is the people. there are 8 billion people in the world, and most of them would love to come here. them live on less day. moveto the confines of a landmass of our country? of course, wehoose, so how do we choose? i think we shouldho us. people were better looking #] let's get our average u. and for the first three hundred

moment, that is how our country works, because -- but we cannot do that and ignore because teddy kennedy neeapparently our entire country is roving the self-esteem of this one irish catholic family. [laughter] was civil-rights for the entire world, thus we got the 1965 civil rights act. ounds like the belief of some hippie called in the world has the right to come here, and we have to take care ofnot only does every poor cousins. kids. nephews, thirdbrother-in-law, that is third world stuff. this is not family reunification. we are doing tribalthe difference between pre-1965, post-1965 immigration is huge. legal immigrants or they get weepy about their

grandfathers athing or talking about the difference between pre-1970 post-1970. that is how long it took the arctic again. mmigrants were better than us. there were morey bought more houses. oh, post-1970 immigrants are not that at all. they are far more likely to be on welfare. of ways to fiddle with the numbers, but one of the main ones counting anchor babies as americans. most of our welfare is dedicated to poor people with children. an illegal runs across the border, eight months a baby and starts collecting will figure on that anchor baby whole village. that can be counted on weare, s what you want to look at is foreign-born family versus native family, and when those comparisons are made, the foreign-born family, 54% collecting government assistance.u.s.-born family, and that includesigrants that have come in since the 1965 civil rights actthe reason for this

and the reason any rules before on this -- if there was an ethnic preference for the countries that founded and built this country, but you rules. it was hard to get here. you have to have some here but moreover there wathat is the crucial turning point. it was a double whammy in 1965. we willciety programs and we will open up immigration to the third worin fact, prefer the third world. pre- immigrants, ellis island immigrants, 30% of them went hom 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% t 10%, so now we are just brinhe world with the most descendant -- dissonant

cultures, and we have collective lines media and the democratsthe 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 avery they are bringing in. igwe ended, and now we are getting it back. bari: thank you so much, anna.. next up is nick gillespie arguing, can essay should not shut its borders. because ann coulter got an extra 50 seconds, i it. nick: i am the token libertarian on the panelably think i would talk most about ecin 1902, the nativist judge which i am pretty sure ann had a call them andwe horseshoe suspended from a magnet that said american prosperity, and then all sorts

of stereotypical bad immigrants. chinese turks probably persian, french italians, russian peasants, europe people carrying bags that just read filth on them the magnet, and the caption of the said the only bad feature of our prospwe are a nation of immigrants, comfortable with the ones currently streamingos ann talk about how the were pretty good as pre-1970 people. jews wereked out of this country to such a degree that millions perished during the emigrate to america, including anne frank. that was the law that teddy kennedy we have never been comfortable with the people streaming across 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 . that is not the whole story. since the of the people

in the country illegally do not bum rush the southern border. they come here illegally and they do not leave. indians illegahird america. a illegal american? but whatstrange about these invaders is what do they do when they get here?our country and then they picked our crops, prepare our lawns, clean our toilets, and babysit our what strange armies of the night. at the same time we are creating a panic on th, need to do with that, we have made it harder and harder for over 9 million people are waiting to get green cards, s skyrocketed over the past few decades from months toimmigrants want to come to america same reason they did 100 years ago my grandparents came here from countries 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 neillegal immigrants are not bringing drugs or crime. immigrants commit fewer crimillegal 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 of today's fortune 500 companies. at they are stealing from us they? even anti-immigrant economists assert are a boom because they expand markets and fill labor gaps. the congressional budget office is said the deficit going forward trillion less over the next decade to because immigrants have expanded economy, so what should we doa system that allows more people to come here legally andnobody can ship the border. do trump could not shut america' borders. i am quotingshed legal

make it harder to get a green card or visa even as he failed to stop migrants from crossing the bordewhat people who want to shut the border this time for people. go at the same time the first widescale exclusionaryainst europ nsacere passed driven by the same things, fear of immigrants like catholics and jews from southern europe. years americans were drinking more passed. we get the same thing with border control. things have tripled since the creationecurity, and now money being spent on border security tripled, and we seem to have less of it. let's create an orderly and deregulated and growing market for immigrationultimately did for beer and boozelet people who went to live and work peacefully here, do so. we canve them apply in their own countries and thennt to be rather than getting clogged up at the southern border oallow individuals, churches, businesses and nonprofits to sponsor them.

up that. ou we should to be building a wall around the welfaret the united states. 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 tattered imagined past. applause] bari: next up is sohrab ahmaries, the united states should shut its borders. sohrab: thank you i will tell you two things about myself that are pertinent to in legal immigrant to the united states and abroad america by choice. the second is i believe we must border due to the mass movement ofmic migrants masquerading as asylum-seekers position? years ago i started right wing reactionary pundits and thinkers. i'm thinking of pehere. in one of her books yearann wrote many of the worseff

native born americans are heard by immigration especiallyin america because these immigrants have less education than the supply of less skilled labor driving on the wag skilled immigrants threatit wasn't ann coulter who that, it was a progressive economist paul krugmanng in the new york times in 2006. maybeou definitely remember the r in wrote sink this country suffering from immig is time to call the hold on this grand rush, which o the labor market resulted in lowering the standard of living immigration is against the interest of the messes of all races and nationalities in our country.buchanan's rhetoric could really sizzle it was not pat buchanan who said that. it was a philip randolph, thick labor and civil rights leader who organized the march on washingtona dream speech. ok, i am sure it was steve bannon who wrote a

policy memo noting that effectively regulated immigration policy establishes limits on the number of. moreover these limits must be strictly enforceable, and he also no low or unskilled low-wage migrants should be wrong in this acc those words. the words come from a 1995 report on the of immigration reform chaired by jordan. she waspresident lyndon b. johnsonan elected to the state senate since reconstruction and the first ever southern w representatives. it notice a pattern. today's pro-business libertarian donors like nick claim immigration isomething that could only be motivated by reactionary racism, put into recently opposing the importation of low-wage migrants was the consensus position of movement. why? because an earlier generation of progresses understood that low-wage migration is onoyers play

to lower labor costs. it is called corporate arbitrage. understood this type of immigrationunof lacrosse -- low working people and hinders productivity growth and thus our prosperity as a nation. to our founding, some employers have always pr dominate, and that is what you get by admitting employers. who cannot speak the language, collect the power to organize. that is why libertariansandkoch 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 nd maybe people in your classke to pretend we can afford the of the old gentry with nannies and gardeners, servants on the cheap and we can afford such a lifestyle by importing vulnerable, hyper exploitable workers into the homeland.

difference is the old exploiters what they wanted out of slave or a near slave gentry be h supporting massive exploitation. or you can join many progressive labor leaders of the past we must shut down the border tothank you. [cheers and applause] bari: five minutes on the clock. last up is cenk uygur. cenk: 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 guys everyone here is descendants from immigrants, so that is true even if you are native american. started in central asia where my folks alsod. the turks went west, you went

east, and here yoon the mayflower literally every one of those folks were undocumented 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 immigrants, that is prepos is how are we going to do immigration? immigration. if you think 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 ago. that is why they burned all of their ships to the gd.it was called the treasure fleet and dominant, there were 10 times the size of the euanthat is why there were economic ago, and after they buried their ships and did

not have anybo out, eight 200 year massive , and it destroyed their self off from the rest of the world is a recipe forisaster, so let's have a realistic conversation about 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. course, you will not be surprised to find out i think a lot of iti will surprise you with a couple of opinions i think are legitimate. onll rapists, said the guy who was indicted 91 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 on being. but when you look at large there is a stone fact that native born are the most likely to be criminalslf

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. are a quarter. natural born times more likely to commit crime bears. the gangs arems 13. ther documentation, and the number of people coming in coming from games are 0.09%, so mirage. it is literally not they are more criminal than the average american. they are taking our jobs. we literally have record low unemployment.both under trump and biden except for covid had really good low unemployment. and they ok 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 plant

and they took your jobs? no. just come pick lettuce and come to the majestic no, they are taking the jobs that america will dobush in 2006 that we will get theseted immigrants. they did several rates, and this happthis one was in fillmore georgia. o out and take out all of the immigrants. it was a small town about 1000 people and once they took out the immigrants, the only plantthat 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 came to the border, it was a mess, and that is not fair to the fact when governor abbott first decided to do the buses to the northern cities, i surprised a lot of ly good idea. politically it but op of that, i said why should the border states carry all pain? why shouldn't it also go to

if you really believe in then you should not have any problem with it. what you can say that. it turns out you don't want them either, right? that when i am pro-immigration? 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 ise a rational immigration system. theinvasion. do you know how many immigrants we lead - country? if those same people came in in undocumented -- in a them a pathway to jobs in 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] st earthquake -- just a quick

housekeeping note, if someone 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. no past and pick up on any ar it is simply effective so rooted by the welfare state. they went back. also -- e we are teaching cnut -- we are king cnut. the people who populated 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 you mean it in the sense that we are all descended from adam and eve did you could not ere was an established society, and establish american economy, than to became the count revolution, and as of 1990 half of americans still ancestry back to those original americans. it was not america before they got here. nick: i don't know what to say tobecause the fact 3/4, four out of five people on this panel do not trace their hevolution or anything like that. we trace our her back to the that wereout our ancestors at a particular moment in time. in 1924, it was over if you were italian or jewish coming from europe. bari: cut off when you are thinking about an immigrant? ann: i don't care -- i am just

saying this business aboutmmigrants that we are all descended from immigrants is simply not it is true. fdr turned to ship lo away. does that mean we have tock our country over this? it is one of the percent not true that immigrantses. there is one famous cato texas, and they counted immigrants who had been caughtorder police, because with thee only thing they know. wait a year, and they find out all of those others are also illegals were attempting a citizen someone who could not already be identified as an look at the most wanted list in places like los angeles or any hotbed of immigration. look at one, and this is why i wrote "adios america." give us a breakdown of immigrants, legal immigrants, illegal immigrants and citizensin our prisons, arrested convicted.

not tell us that, and my side is the side asking for it. [indiscernible] need to know the ethnicitybecause of gang fights. they keep records and look ae records. it is the top 20 groups in new rk are all from latin america. nick: quickly, we would have less crime in america if the candidate family had been kept out. i to point out about crime and things like that. with the recent increases that happened during the pandemic when immigration stopped in the country, we saw a rise inrime, so you would think a legals not coming into the country and crim peculiar. ving in the past, the crime rates inht now are much lower than they were 20 or 30 years agocrime when we are talking about herring. bari: i would like to put you guys the issue of the

depression, because i imagine you guys have different perspectives on it. is a perspective is a libertarian. is it true? ni it depends. as and 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 etc. if had an efficient sys 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 dohey 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 lotut americans is that none of me to pass. we did not have huge unemployment. wages were not related to that atmeta-studies, and they show they

are not rela th thing wages are relatedhere a higher minimum wage? corporate power. from 1938 to 1978 productiv are wages matched it. bribery and allowed corporate contributions. from then on your productivityed but wages flatlined. orporate power. it is nothing immigrants, and waves of immigrants have proven that to be the case. sohrab: everyone just vaguely suggested studies, and ii had a few things from the other side. jobs. think about this. sectors immigrants are most represented, especially illegal immigrants, you are and laundry, building maintenance, apparel and manuftu landscaping, private household work. in each of these sectors, labor is about 20%, so that means there are plenty of legal migrantsworkers working these jobs.

it is not truet do them, so when farmers ranchers, and developers complain they cannot find american workers, with a cannot find american workers willing to work ser like conditions. if that is t case, why do disney and some tech firms have theirworkforce trained visa replacements and ushered them out of the way? e 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 grants doing the jobs that migr areas, so it is not true americans do not do certain jobs. i was the only one who kept to minutes. [laughter] bari: he is so prepared, it is breaking my heart. sohrab: we all consumers, it is good for us as consumers. so if goods and services by lowering

wages including labor arbitrage is such a great idea, why not help all americans just constantly lower their not just the ones of migrant labor. why not legalize child labor? it they say we all benefit as consumers. no, that is a statistical trick. me 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 aret your house cleaned at a discount because of a vulnerable migrant harms to workers, and that is the noncollegerisk by illegal immigration and off? those are the most at risk we generalize the benefits as consumers, why don't neralize that we think about the harms to those classes and country. nick: consensus

that cheap labor force, which is a shrinking and small 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 bonusd things like that. when you talk about immigrants acting like ask them why they come herejimmy john's in hour to make sandwiches. that is not serfdom anything terrible, and you can ask about illegal immigrants who come to the border, they get ught and gets into mexico. are they coming back again to exploited and they want to live in poverty or it is because what they have in america is better than that? they are building a future for themselves. so barbara jordan, a democrat - late 90's, principal does not change. if you have conditions in which

he wasing day, of course whatever you put before the jobs they find here is advantageous to them. that is.jbut the fact is what we are saying is we are telling our nativehey 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 aacking. they will not go to the national labor relations board when there was wage theft. bari: i amsecurity came up and no one's statement, and one of the things that is ks that people are coming from world. at their coming from china russia syria egypt. they are coming frome and we don't know who those people are. e 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 of people on this issue. cenk: they are erst of all, fox news with demagogue and go there was run. there is a muslim guy comiwhy don't you just tell me you are a big. that does improve thing. there was a prayerd it turns out there were not. having terrorists come to the border and done a massive lot to my knowledge, zero:r.do you know how many people have done mass shootings in america? tons and tonan tons. are we kidding ourselves? that have been every single day, the massacre after massacre, and that is al us. the people who live in america. if you were talking about national security, thethreats come onit 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. so you haveann: terrorists. 9/11. cenk: did they come across the border? ann: i don't care if they come across the border. n bernardino, and it is hard to figure these things out because one of the san bernardino as well as the pulse nightclub terrorists america, so the media describe them as american men.it is the boy next door, and did hn?the boston embalmers, and they had some uncle some place you came in. -- everyk you can think of. the times square bomber. rsbombing. they were illegal immigrants under the agricultural

adjustment actation law that allowed agricultural stay. inf knew 90% were fake and left them i those are a few. literally none of those people crossed the border. none. ann: it is worse that they come in legally. >> you were talking about national security concerns on order. 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 reason to have a working pathway where you can people as opposed to a rush of people thatme and overwhelming any kind of process. if it starts in their home countries, you could have a more border and check people at the door rather than a ann: they were vetted.

bombers, san bernardino. welcome. nick: nowi 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 americancod a company. you mentioned two -- sacramento and the boston bombers. across the border. how aboutist attacks? synagogue shootings? pittsburgh? the shooting in el paso? literally thousands of shootings and you have two document it and on the cillegally. >> norcd -- norm macdonald, he said if a muslim explod bomb that kills 50 million people, what i'm 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 threatborder is not addressed that will get the ugly solution. [applause] i do not solution. bari: earlier in this conversation ann suggested we should bring in people better than us. similar two days ago. wen people from nice countries like denmark norway, switzerland. 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 i if you listen to ann and have a certain point ofhink -- i want to go b 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 market rather than just flooding the country and harming without high school educations or just a high school education. shetion methods. that is what barbara jordan said. prioritize the nuclear family if you are going to have reunificationr than cousins. i think a lot of what said i would sign up for as well. i wii came through family reun chain migrant. someone might sa you say other people should not receive when i would say is now my allegiances to the well-being and common good of this country and not to the g 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 e order that could take hold as soon as this month that would limit from entering the country. a very different position than where his presidencypresidency, he was rolling back trump'nick: to his credit, he had no idea what he was thinking then. [laughter] [applause] ut i want you to touch on the politics of it. free press a few weeks ago that talked about sevens being brought in the city of chicago, 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 communities. [applause] cenk: i agreell 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. said the national security threat gasps in the room. thes e later? that literally happened. on this idea, the bad countries are sethe 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. th poor. the jews wereor and lived in the worst parts of new york. if we had closed enough to those ants it would not be the america we know and love today. it might not even bethe jewish people driven out of germany came to america and we if we had done ann coulter'sstrategy 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 thisthe 30 glorious years. it coi with -- not latively, totally conflating -- cenk: corporate power become supersized in 1978 court decisions. golden period, plenty of immigrants in different parts of that period. john with that, -- it does not jive without, the story were telling. what we were doing so hower in democracy, the american people. if you cut off all of these countries because of an arbitrary rule, inconvenient because everyone came1970 is 98% of the cothe new immigrants are not good because they are coming from real are not helping.

bari: 30 seconds. cenk: if you can seet ployment at all -- record low unemployment. sohrab: preeminent economists the relationship between labor unions and immigrationmembership and american time moved inversely with trends of immigration inflows. always reported illegal authorities. he said the illegal they are farmworkers and because they areless to defend their interests. if there used to break our strikes, we could wi battles. nick: make themnd suddenly they are not under the bosohrab: it becomes harder to private sector 1950's. it is a product of industrialization.

at era is over. america' workers are gaining in wages. the problem was chicago -- and chicago city services -- is not illegal immigrants, it is generations of terrible city government. it is completely out of control. n eric adams says we cannot 50egal immigrants coming inike that. you are telling me a city of 8.5 million people -- unlike thosepeople, i have never been to martha's vineyard. i would like to. [laughter] bari: i do not think you could!k there. nick: we do need to restrain welfare spending in general. there is no quesa like new york because of a court ruling, there isthat 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,eal the law of gravity. that is not happening. i can think of two counterexamples. minnesota, the clean union scandinavians, they 100,000 somalis on them. they are having all kinds of rape, human smuggling credit car smm the large estate in the union rnia. paradise, the mostwealthy,igured it out. they had a balanced budget every year. ple move in and there is a t $60 billion. it is preposterous. they cannot pay for themselves. it actually does make a difference bringing in a lot of third world people. say specific countries. what i said is we do noté" have

sink or swim so we do need to have some skim the cream of the world like we used to and we sure are not doing it. bari:bari: i want to clarify. some ai genius and they were cong country that was not scandinavia -- ann: of course. what the other side does is cite peter, elon musk, cite a few really, from south africa ok, we get 10 of those and 20 million leaf blowers. [laughter] [applause] bari: we are running low on time. before we go to closing do, the propositions night was should americas borders? you can interpret that in tshould america solve the problem stop immigration at all? i would love for each of you to take one minute. if you are president of the

could happen there might be an open cowhat is 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 so much money in this country. that is somethingnt to do. that would stem some of thebut you need that. the second part that you us to do a reasonable, sane, immigration policy for documented immigrants sotit 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 muskyou do not know who will be amazing. we far too little documentedonce we increase the size, ie you plenty of

opportunity to do with the right way, you are o done. once you cross the border illegally and we catch, you can never return. that is a fair trade. the last thing marshall plan for latin america. not because itthing to do but it is stunningly successful. whenjapan, turkey and greece, w enemies into our greatest allies, they became -- a trading partner for us. the number one reason people are coming is economic desperation. here from mexico, honduras and guatemala. now, a huge flood of immigrantsunder trump and biden -- people are coming from venezuela and colombia. time to replace -- no. they were desperate and had t help those countries. bari: plan for latin america, more asylum judges. nick:tarian in me would never forgive myself if i did not put as one of the most oversold

ideas in history the german economic miracle took place afte by the u.s. and the allies on the german economy were lifted. bari: make it easier to come into the country legallydo more of the processing in the home countries. have people walking through the door, showing papers. 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. forbid them from getting wings will thrive. that is what happened in the past and what would happen again. bari: beautiful. thank you [applause] sohrab: agriculture took longer to south for a long time they could rely on free labor. likewise, we have the same process going on.

having a giant output gdp because people, that is not rational prosperity. we could bring in 100 million people and just give them an old-school agricultumachines and that would localize gdp growth. not the kind of laborsaving technology that pushesas long as we have cheap l next stage. the next industria hindered because there is no incentive to use laborsaving technology. what i would do is close low-wage migration,. skills-based migration. i would stop the mockery we have made of the asylum process where we t and call them asylum-seekers. law in a way because that is a clear definition of what a refugee really is. 80% of these people at the verleast -- i have traveled with them as a reporter not asylum-seekers. the vast majority.

bari: thank you. one thing i totally agree with but i would 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' if you come from a successful 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 notr, i will steal from the the new york times is excited that they and they are waving their red hats and he tells them to move on to thethey 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 e instead. know asylum cases.

i have onemost of these laws are already on the books. if you qualify for asylum under the l are supposed to be turned away at our border right now. become a public charge -- no, instead we are giving them free iphones. ur free housing. you cannot getanother country where you could get asylum. that is another thing about the humanitarian relief. . why do they always come 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 the have to show they have other vaccinations. nobody is beingnobody is being turned away. ease should be getting in at the border. what kin write? you cannotwant 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: arguments tonight

were well made. we will now go to closing ts and we will do it in reverse order. two minutes on the clock. closing statements. cenk: guys, i think there are some on the left who make it e that. there is something that is driving to immigrants when it is not crime or employment or any of the other things that are sensible reasons. progressive but by nature i am consei did not like it when they put a walmartmy hometown because it was new and different. i did not want it. in. but we cannot get into it. closed its borders, it has closed itselnd it has been greatly counterproductive. when we ur culture? our culture not something that was created, whether it was in 1770 or 1970.

it is an amalgamation of all ofwhat is the most americans think? that is from italy. bagels andthat is what is great about us stronger, not weaker. poor in. my dad came to this country would literally $1 in his pou do not know who is going to make it. that is what is beautiful about thispeople are desperately trying to give their families a be know what that guy will do who went through that perilous life to get here? he will work really hard. hope, for his family. i do not want them breaking the law. i do not wanted out of have now. but if we are open-minded enough 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 he was a 21-year-old unacceptable, we cannot have him, he was poor, that was steve jobs' dad and would have courselves

$1 trillion. immigrants to this country are america and america is immigrants. anymore. bari: thank you so much. [applause] sohrab: the l spent any significant amount of time in texas was in 2005-2007 when was a teach for america schoolteacher in brownsville texas. [applause] clap, because wait. i came as a typical that i am here to rescue these peop 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 representatives at the time. i said something like there are people, there is no such thing as an illegal personrants who are poised to transform our nation for the better phrase -- not knowing in my

twentysomething ignorance that cesar chavez was a of mass migration of that kind. [laughter] i went to school day, i came in with prideheer me. all of my fellow teachers and 99 students were mexican-american and i thought they would put me on their they all hated the [laughter] mr. gonzales, maybe he will catch this on c-span, mr. gonzoffice and more what is this? [laughter] why is it that employer lobbies always favor higher rates of oppose turns against illegal migration? hispanic americans favor illegals? 70% favor toughethese people are not racist. they just understand that the kind of mass migration we have nowsociety but impoverish is the people who actually needp

and the working class of this country have been battered not just by off shoring butvemigration which is the other form. you should oppose[applause] bari:nick: i am happy to hear the new hispanic/mexican students, barely new in this country have taken on the tradition of hating thei it shows people assimilate. [laughter] that is something we did not talk about today. my italian grawe should not talk about that. most peo if not for them their kids. lian grandparents never spoke english. i never had a conversation with great. a few years ago theists congressman talked channeling a dutch politician, saying you cannot see else's

babies. my italian grandparent sons who fought in world war ii and korea and saved our civilization. they change we change in reaction to them. they change us and it goestalking about pepperoni food after decades as the america was unseated by mexican food. an 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 people come here and they can do what they want as much as possible. the americaner life for yourself, your kids, your grandkids, even the ones you cannot talk to. people -- prohibition for people is destroy the electric pullthat magnet which is american prosperity. do not borders, keep

them open and keep us growing. [applause] bari: ann coulter. ann:king up on what sohrab said about his mexican classmates not wanting anymore illegal mexico, duh, everyone who came here did not want to live in venezuela or mexico. by way, you have already takenhere 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 even thoughgal and illegal -- commit a boatload of crime. 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. we remember 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 resank you. [applause] bari: ok. i am not moving 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 "vo then you will get the prompt. you will text a yes, the u.s. shouldhut it border to vote for ann four sohrab, or vote for

b, nick and cenk's sighed, keep the border open. e, i want to extend some special thanks to the unbelievable team. whoai will do that again. while everyone votes, i want to extend a special everyone on the team. i especially want to thank these people. huge, huge unbelievable thanks joey, isaac and ellie who loaned me her rolex for the evening. it is my first one. without them, none of this would have applause for all of them. [applause] r in, i will do a quick lightning round of favorite american presidents and immigrant. ann: probablysohrab: sdr -- fdr.

nick: favorite president. cenk: fdr. bari: favorite immigrant to this country, legal or illegal. cenk:nick: my arnold schwarzenegger. [laughter] [applause] ann:where is mariano rivera from? bari:d recommend a book to everyone in this room, nick: the guarded gate. history of immigration restriction restrictionists. ann: it is banned everyplace, written by a french philosophe 1970's. it is a fictional book. i did not think french people could be funny. it is very funny incorrect. sohrab: every someone who is a true lonetreasure and national

treasure, my friend arguments are basically my cheat sheet. it is not just my book. justice is coming. [laughter] bari: we started the with 71% of you votinges shut its borders and between 9% voting nafter tonight, let's find out where the results[applause] bari: wowi do not know who you are cheeringshould the u.s. shut its borders? nick and cenk's 37% are with you. so -- ann andhrab 63%. [applause] bari: it is impossible to have these kinds of conversations. want to commend everyone on the stage tonight. ann coulter, nick

gillespie andthank you so much and have a good night. [applause] right national cable satellite corp. 2024] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. nk you so much. so good. ♪ ♪

♪