Don’t Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses. Really?

On May 3rd, Intelligence Squared US held a debate on the motion "Don't Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses," which addressed the issue of immigration, legal and illegal. Arguing on behalf of the motion were Kris Kobach and Tom Tancredo; arguing against were Mayor Julián Castro and Tamar Jacoby. 

If you recall those attending an Intelligence Squared US debate vote prior to and after the debate, and the winning debate team is decided by how many minds were changed and in what direction. As always not only can you listen to the debate at the Intelligence Squared website ("Don't Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses"), but you can access transcripts of the debate as well. The debates can also be downloaded from iTunes (my source).

Here's a brief description of the participants (from the Intelligence Squared website):

Kris Kobach is the secretary of state for Kansas and former professor of constitutional law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He served as counsel to Attorney General John Ashcroft during the Bush administration, where he led Department of Justice efforts to prevent terrorists from exploiting gaps in U.S. immigration controls. Kobach is well known nationally for his role as co-author of Arizona’s SB 1070 illegal immigration law and has litigated some of the most significant immigration-related cases in the country.

Tom Tancredo is a former Republican congressman from Colorado (1999-2009). He sought the 2008 Republican nomination for President of the United States with the intention of forcing the immigration issue into the debate. In 2010, Tancredo ran as the Constitution Party's nominee for governor of Colorado. Tancredo served as the Secretary of Education's regional representative under Presidents Reagan and Bush, and founded two not-for-profit education organizations, the Rocky Mountain Foundation and the American Legacy Alliance.

Mayor Julián Castro is the 36-year-old mayor of San Antonio, making him the youngest mayor of a Top 50 American city. In 2001, at the age of 26, Mayor Castro became the youngest elected city councilman in San Antonio history. Throughout his tenure in public service, he has championed a vision of economic growth and a top-notch quality of life for all San Antonians. In 2005, Castro founded the Law Offices of Julián Castro, PLLC, a civil litigation practice. He earned his undergraduate degree from Stanford University with honors and distinction in 1996 and a juris doctorate from Harvard Law School in 2000.

Tamar Jacoby is president and CEO of ImmigrationWorks USA, a national federation working to advance better immigration law. She is the author of Someone Else’s House: America’s Unfinished Struggle for Integration, and editor of Reinventing the Melting Pot: The New Immigrants and What It Means To Be American, a collection of essays about immigrant integration. From 1989 to 2007, she was a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Before that, she was a senior writer and justice editor for Newsweek and the deputy editor of the New York Times op-ed page (1981 – 1987).