The Free Press
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Should the U.S. Shut Its Borders? A Live Debate.
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Should the U.S. Shut Its Borders? A Live Debate.
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The United States is home to more immigrants than any other country in the world. It is a truism that everyone who lives here at some point came from somewhere else. At the same time, debates about who and how many people to let in have roiled the nation since our very founding.

And in the past few years, things have heated up to a new level.

That’s no surprise, considering that unlawful attempts to cross the southern border hit a record high of about 2.5 million last year. In the past four years, nearly 5 million attempts to cross the border illegally occurred in Texas alone.

We’ve all seen the videos of mothers with babies shimmying under barbed wire, of migrant caravans marching toward Texas, of young men charging Border Patrol agents.

It’s why immigration is the top issue for voters in the 2024 election. Indeed, the influx has made even progressive cities, which previously declared themselves immigration sanctuaries, sound the alarm. Last May, former Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot said “we’ve reached a breaking point,” while declaring a state of emergency in her city. In September, New York mayor Eric Adams said the influx of migrants “will destroy New York City.”

All of this is the subject of our first live debate of 2024, which took place in Dallas, and that we wanted to share with you on Honestly today. The proposition: Should the United States shut its borders?

Arguing in the affirmative are Ann Coulter and Sohrab Ahmari. On the opposing side, arguing that no, the United States should not shut its borders, are Nick Gillespie and Cenk Uygur.

They also cover questions like: Is mass immigration is a net gain or a net loss for America? How do we balance our humanitarian impulse with our practical and economic needs? Do migrants suppress wages of the already strained working class? Do they stretch community resources impossibly thin? Does a porous border impact our national security? And what does a sensible border policy really look like?

We hope you listen, share, and discuss. 

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Comments
13

Surprise surprise, Cenk Uygur's entire argument is a straw man relying on cliched slogans and factual inaccuracies. He's also a bully with no etiquette and constantly interrupts his debate opponents in every setting--usually yelling, swearing, and insulting them as well. Merely interrupting is actually polite, for him. Why are legitimate media outlets still giving him a platform??

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Bari - I was interested in this topic and tried to listen this morning but couldn't get past the introduction without having to turn it off. I don't know anyone in either party that is against immigration. I know many first generation Americans - they are almost without exception the most kind, the most generous, the most hard working, the most warm hearted, some of the best people I know. Every one of them makes this community better. And I am grateful and lucky to know them all. However, immigration is run by the US government - US immigration is not something that is managed by the cartels at an open border. When you conflate immigration with what is going on at the border you are being dishonest. To say that people rushing the border - to say that the increase in fentanyl deaths (to over a hundred thousand per year in this country now), national security threats and child trafficking is immigration, that is not fair. It reminds me of when you discuss how so much that is happening now began with word games and with lies. Last year I helped someone in their eighties apply for a passport. They were born in this country, they paid taxes their whole life, they never got so much as a speeding ticket. It took us weeks to collect documents and information needed for the application. We waited almost a month for an appointment and then had to make a second trip back because we were missing some necessary information - all so that a person in their eighties could spend 5 days in Mexico. When you conflate immigration with what is happening at the border, without distinguishing between the two, you are decreasing the amount of trust your readers have in the Free Press. You are being dishonest. And you have to know that.

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