After Party with Emily Jashinsky - Immigration Debate with Scott Jennings and Ryan Grim - ICE Crackdown Tactics, and Who Deserves Citizenship

Episode Date: April 30, 2026

In this special edition of “After Party,” Emily Jashinsky hosts a debate in collaboration with Young America’s Foundation featuring Scott Jennings, host of “The Scott Jennings Show,” and Ryan Grim, Emily’s co-host at “Breaking Points” and the co-founder of “Drop Site.” The debate opens with the fundamental question: do all immigrants deserve citizenship and what makes an American. Scott and Ryan have a spirited debate over national identity, law, and assimilation. Scott argues citizenship is a rare privilege grounded in loyalty, legal compliance, and American values, while Ryan counters that immigration must be judged pragmatically and that current enforcement has become overly harsh and, in some cases, abusive. The discussion escalates into disputes over ICE enforcement in places like Minnesota. The panel also takes a series of questions from students at The George Washington University on issues including deportation priorities for foreign students and activists like Mahmoud Khalil.. The debate concludes with some agreement on our immigration policies, warnings about civil liberties, and a defense of national self-determination through elections.   Beam: Visit https://shopbeam.com/AFTERPARTY and use code AFTERPARTY to get our exclusive discount of up to 40% off.   Cowboy Colostrum: Get 25% Off Cowboy Colostrum with code AFTERPARTY at https://www.cowboycolostrum.com/AFTERPARTY   Toups & Co: Ready to give Toups a try? Get 25% off your first order by going to https://toupsandco.com/afterparty , and use code AFTERPARTY for 25% off your first order. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Thank you everyone so much for being here. I want to start by welcoming you all to a very special edition of After Party taped here at my alma moderator, George Washington University. The show airs live Mondays and Wednesdays on YouTube and as a podcast. So please subscribe, help us keep doing our independent journalism. Like tonight's unprecedented meeting of the minds, we're very excited. I want to thank everyone for taking the time out of your evening to be here, whether you're with us in person or watching or listening to.

this online in the future. I also want to thank the Lindy and Harry Bradley Foundation for sponsoring this debate. Thank you to Young America's Foundation for hosting this event with the kids at GW YAF tonight. And in full disclosure, I am on the Yaff board and I co-host a show with Ryan. So while I'm conservative, I am confident we will have a very fair exchange here this evening. Otherwise, what's the point? So let's now welcome our debaters who will be focused on an enormous and timely question tonight. I'll let them take the stay. and we'll get into it. If you haven't heard of Beam's dream powder, let me tell you, this one is different,

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40% off. All right. To my right is Ryan Grimm. He is a reporter and co-founder of the enormously successful and still very young drop site news. What they've been able to build over there. He already got fans in the audience is really incredible. He's also the author of We Got People, The Squad, and This Is Your Country on Drugs. And he's also a co-host over at Breaking Points. Scott Jennings. You know him from television. Television Scott Jennings and also from radio. He's, of course, a contributor over at CNN. He's the best-selling author of Revolution of Common Sense, and he's the host of the Scott Jennings Show on Salem. So tonight's question, as I mentioned, timely, do all immigrants deserve citizenship? What makes an American? Now, this question is intentionally broad because we don't want to get bogged down in the weeds of immigration policy, but we want to focus on the core question that faces the country right now. after what was, according to David Leonhardt of the New York Times, the largest immigration

surge in U.S. history. That's the reality. We're here, whether we like it or we don't like it. That's what happened. And that includes the Ellis Island wave, by the way. Leinhardt reports a net migration surge during the Biden years of at least 8 million with 5 million of those people lacking legal authorization. And for some context, that is the entire population of Virginia.

From Arlington to Norfolk to Lynchburg, it's roughly the combined population of Nebraska, West Virginia, Idaho, and New Mexico. It's well over two Los Angeles and just under one New York City. And I actually say this not to put my thumb on the scale here for Scott, although it might sound like that's what I was just doing. But there are many good people around the world who love America and want to come here and be good citizens. But of course, we don't have room for literally every person in the world. And yet, now many people are already here. That's the reality that we face. So can they be Americans? should they be Americans, is deporting the equivalent of New York City feasible or moral?

And if not, then do these immigrants deserve to become citizens, deserve to become Americans? So first, Scott is going to kick us off with a five-minute opening statement, followed by one from Ryan. And you'll each get three minutes to respond to one another, after which I'm going to ask the two of you questions. And then we're going to open it up to all of you in the audience and conclude with three-minute closing statements from each of you. Scott Jennings, the floor is yours. Okay, thank you and appreciate the invitation to be here tonight. Emily, it's honored to be with you. Congratulations on your podcast and all of your success. You're one of our faves, and we're proud to know you. Ryan, we don't know each other, but I followed you for many years. And I just want to start by saying that I think we are in need of more debate in the United States of America.

We're a nation founded on debates, some muskets, but also mostly debates. We need debates. That's sort of what I'm doing on CNN with our embrace of the debating format. And I applaud all of you for coming to a debate on what is otherwise a beautiful evening, because we need to be able to embrace this. Confrontation is okay. Debate is okay as long as we're doing it in good faith and with good humor, which is what I endeavor to tonight.

So thank you both for taking part in this. I'll just start my arguments with something that I don't think should be controversial. The United States of America is the greatest country in the history of the world. Now, you probably don't hear too many folks saying that on this campus or many campuses these days. But the fact is, it is true. It is downright tragic, in my opinion, that campuses and other places have become. become hotbeds of anti-American and anti-Western radicalism, particularly among people who are not citizens of the United States,

but we're in fact invited here because of our good nature and our goodwill. But we are the greatest nation, not because of our geography, not because of our military and not even because of our wealth, but because of our ideas. We are the inheritors and the defenders of Western civilization. And this is a tradition that is grounded in the belief that individual liberty matters, that our rights come from God and not government, that the rule of law is important and applies equally, and that free people can govern themselves.

That's what makes America exceptional. And it is precisely because of that exceptionalism that tonight's question matters so much. Do all immigrants deserve U.S. citizenship? The answer is quite obviously, no, they do not. This is not an anti-immigrant statement, but it is a pro-American position. Citizenship in the United States is not an entitlement. It is the most precious political inheritance on the face of this earth. As Reagan said, citizenship in the United States is the most precious right in the world. And you think about what people do to become Americans when they follow the law,

when they wait their turn, when they take the oath of loyal, to our country, and they mean it. They did not demand that America change for them. They changed themselves to become part of America. I don't consider this to be oppression. I consider it to be assimilation. This is not a new idea. Teddy Roosevelt said that we have room for but one language here and one sole loyalty, and that is a loyalty to the American people. But what we're being told today is something altogether different, that anyone who arrives, regardless of how they arrived, or what they believe, should ultimately be granted citizenship. I don't consider this to be a compassionate view. I consider it to be chaos. If everyone who shows up is entitled to citizenship,

then citizenship literally means nothing at all. A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation, a country that cannot define its citizenship, cannot sustain any sort of an identity. I do want to make clear that I respect immigrants. I admire the courage that it takes to come here, but I think respect cuts both ways. If you want to become an American citizen, at a minimum, you should respect and love America. And that means following our laws, contributing to our society, and embracing the principles that make our country what it is. America is not a place. It is a set of ideas.

And they are not compatible with lawlessness or with ideologies that reject liberty, equality, and the American identity itself. And I'll add one more point, because this goes directly to who does deserve citizenship. Countless thousands of people who have been given extraordinarily privileges to study and be in the United States of America have in many cases abused that opportunity. Instead of embracing this country, they spend their time protesting it, declaring it to be rotten at its core, and even advocating for its decline and demise, and even for the downfall of Western civilization.

You're free to hold those views, but you're also free to hold them where you came from if you want. you do not have an entitlement to come to the United States and work for the downfall of the very country that welcomed you. And we as Americans have no obligation to tolerate it, nor do we have any obligation to reward it with American citizenship. I think citizenship means a commitment to a nation. And if someone despises that nation, we should take them at their word. I think the current administration has taken steps, necessary steps, to curtail the presence of anti-Western radicals and remove them where appropriate under U.S. law. I don't consider it to be cruelty, but rather common sense. I think it's good for our national sovereignty, and it is consistent with the idea that citizenship and even presence in the United States of America must be respected and earned and ultimately good for the United States of America and her. people. Citizenship is about responsibilities. As Calvin Coolidge said, we must not only be willing to pay the price for freedom, but also be willing to accept the responsibilities of citizenship.

So no, I'll argue the point tonight that not all immigrants deserve U.S. citizenship, but many do, those who follow the law and come here to work, who believe in freedom and believe in the fundamentals of the United States of American, people who want to be. Americans. Those are the kinds of people who might actually strengthen this country. And those are the people that we should welcome into the greatest nation that this world has ever known. Thank you. And I yield the floor. Perfect. All right. Well, luckily, there is one anti-Western radical that Donald Trump has not deported. Any too with this? Kidding. Oh, course. Ryan Graham, you have five minutes. Well, I guess I would start by saying I don't actually take the yes side of that. I think, well, first of all,

There are a lot of people that come here as immigrants who don't want citizenship. They're on student visas. They're on work visas. They're on work visas. They're here for a summer. They're here for a couple years. They're headed back. Separately, if you're violent criminals, you committed a serious crime when you apply, if you then apply, I'm fine with that being rejected.

So I don't take an absolute position on that. But what I would say is that we do have a fundamental disagreement on the nature of what makes this country great. And, you know, you started by talking about, debate and the importance of it, which I could not agree with you anymore on that very point. But then ended it by saying that if you come from another place, certain debating positions are not acceptable, whether it's, let's say, somebody argues against the idea of Western civilization or a woman who I wrote about yesterday was against the war in Iran.

She's from Iran. She was actually imprisoned by Iran. Now she's in prison by the United States for protesting or for being against this war. Also, they claimed that she was the niece of an Iranian general, it turns out. That's not true. She wasn't. So what I would agree, and I, you know, this is a, because of a conservative audience and I enjoy speaking to conservatives in the sense that, like, you guys have read

a lot of the classics, right? Like you guys are into that. And one thing I would grant as kind of a left-winger, although I don't even know if I think myself as that anymore. One thing I would grant is that the thing that Europe and then the United States did give to the world that is a true gift is the Enlightenment. Without the Enlightenment, we don't have democracy.

We don't have the ideas of liberty and freedom. We don't have individual human rights. We don't have freedom of speech. And this is something that we should all be proud of and that we should cherish. One thing I regret is that the way that the kind of development of the Enlightenment is taught leaves people a little bit confused as if it sort of just came out of a vacuum. When, if you go back and look, what was going on at the time is that Europeans were coming over here to America. And they were meeting Americans who were already here.

And those Americans had fundamentally different ideas about freedom and monarchy than the Europeans who had come over. And they were utterly shocking to those Europeans. And I don't think people understand how intense a debate and a conversation this was in Europe. The top-selling books in Europe then were these travelogues. And you can imagine why. long time you thought the world was this. And, you know, it's, you know, the printing press is practically, you know, it's only a couple hundred years old at this point. So you don't know

a whole lot about the world. And all of a sudden, you're told there's a whole other world that exists with people and their own multi-thousand-year history. Like, imagine what that must have been like to the Europeans to discover how kind of intellectually stimulating that would be. And so these travel logs were far in a way the best-selling books among the intellectual class, among everybody who was literate in Europe and England. I don't know if we want to count England as Europe anymore, whatever. And these travelogues were written in the form of dialogues with people who were in America. Some of them were made up, like some of the most famous Enlightenment authors, Chateaubriand,

Voltaire, like some of their most famous works are dialogues with kind of people from the Americas. And it's how it's kind of a platonic, you know, Socratic kind of back and forth. But one of them that became the kind of most popular, it came out in early 1700s and I have a little piece of it for you here. And it was an absolute, you know, cultural and intellectual sensation. It produced, it was, it sold more copies than like anything else. It was, it was, turned into plays. If you were a thinking person in Europe or England in the early 1700s, you were deeply familiar with this book. So it's written by this guy, Louis Arnard. He was the Baron de La Honten. So you can look it up. It's called New Voyages to North America or something.

It's for shorthand. It's called the Dialogues. And it's his real conversations with this Huron chief named Kandhi-A-Rank. And you have about a minute, by the way. Okay, so I'll read this one. So this is one of the kind of famous exchanges. So Lahontan, who's arguing for the European side, he's telling him what the monarchy and the rule of law in France does. And he says, without it, you know, quote, we would be the most miserable people on the face

of the earth. And so he, so Kondi-Rank says back to him, no, you are miserable enough. already, and indeed, I can't see how you can be much more. What sort of men must the Europeans be? What species of creatures? The Europeans who must be forced to do good and have no other prompter for the avoiding of evil than the fear of punishment? For these 50 years, your governors have still alleged that we are subject to the laws of

their great king. We content ourselves in denying all manner of dependence, except that upon the great spirit. We are born free and our joint brothers who are all equally masters, whereas you are all slaves to one man. Pray tell me, what authority or right is the pretended superiority of your great king grounded on? So this is early 1700. These are the ideas that infected the European consciousness and helped to produce the Enlightenment. And it would kill me if it ends with the abject barbarity and cruelty that our immigration system has become right now. We can get into how brutal and ridiculous it is for the economy and for people who are trying to build homes, et cetera.

But what it's doing to people does not fit with the ideas of the Enlightenment that have made this country great. Scott, that's a fantastic place to turn this over to you for a three-minute. response, Ryan just said the abject barbarity and cruelty of the American system, as it is right now, you have three minutes. Well, first I would say these are existing

U.S. laws that are simply being enforced by someone who was duly elected President of the United States and took an oath to uphold the laws. Now, the last President of United States decided to violate his oath and not uphold the laws. In fact, he instructed his government

to ignore those laws. Now, you can like the laws, you can not like the laws, and if you don't like the laws, you can ask Congress to change them. And maybe they should. Maybe they should tighten them. Maybe they should liberalize them. That would be a debate for us and you all to have. But the laws are the laws. And we're either going to be a nation of laws or we're not. They're enforcing the laws. If you come here illegally, you commit crimes, you're existing outside of a immigration system that creates many pathways for people to come here. Too many, in fact, in my opinion. But you have millions of people who have come here outside of this entire system. They have no right to be here. They are not entitled to be

here. We are under no obligation to keep them here. I agree with you that it is an interesting point of debate about whether those people are net positives or net negatives on certain sectors of the economy, perfectly legitimate debate to have and should be had, actually, about the way our economy works. But what's not really debatable is what the laws are. And so I think you have to ask yourself, is it a good idea just to ignore certain laws that are on the books and have been for many, many years? Since Donald Trump became the president, we've not passed any new laws. There's no new immigration laws, really. We're enforcing laws that have existed for a long time. They should not actually feel controversial, even though it's been made to sound controversial.

So I don't really agree with the point that it's barbarism to enforce existing laws. I actually think the opposite is true. I think it's barbarism to ignore laws because ignoring our immigration laws, just for instance, led to one of the biggest human trafficking crises, probably in world history. Millions of people came here. And along the way, people die or abused, sold into sexual trafficking situations. It's horrific what open borders does to populations, particularly populations of the vulnerable. This is often ignored by people who think it's terrible that we might enforce the laws or close the border.

And for the life of me, I can't understand why they're interested in ignoring some of the savagery that has gone on. inside of an open border system. The stories are legion. Furthermore, I also think it's barbarism to let people into the country unvetted who are themselves violent. Story after story after story of violent illegal aliens coming to the United States and further committing violence. Four of the five murders committed in Fairfax County, Virginia this year,

have been committed by illegal aliens. The argument against the... this is always, well, those are anecdotes. Try telling that to the family of Lake and Riley or some other person who's been murdered in the streets of America, somebody who was entitled to be here, murdered by someone who was not.

So to me, I think there are actually some points of agreement here about the need for a legal immigration system. We obviously agree that not everybody needs or should be entitled to citizenship. But there's going to be some points of disagreement here about whether it's good for America, to just willy-nilly let millions of people into this country and have no idea who they are,

why they're here, what they're doing when they get here, and then try to work a bureaucratic system to keep them here for as long as possible, which is exactly how the United States executive branch and judicial branch are currently geared. Perfect. Ryan, to put a fine point on that, Scott's argument is your position on this

is actually the cruel and our, barric option for the immigration system. So I think that saying that they are just following and enforcing the law is a cop-out because the Biden folks would say the exact same thing. The law hasn't been updated for many decades, and it leaves enormous room for interpretation. They interpreted it to allow for enormous numbers of asylum claims and other things to come through. people could disagree with the interpretation or the policy,

and I think Democrats basically have given up on defending that policy at this point, but it doesn't mean that it was illegal necessarily. And so because who even is like, who's the sheriff that you're going to call, who's the cops you're going to call? I think a lot of what Stephen Miller is doing is illegal and is not following the law. I think, but even if it is, I think that's a cop. I think we should talk about what works and what doesn't and what how we want this, how we, what kind of world we want to live in. And I think anybody who is supportive of the way that Stephen Miller is executing this immigration policy,

they're either like, I don't have words for it, or they don't actually know, like, the details of what he is actually doing. One thing he has done is he has interpreted the rules to say that anybody, you know, who can't came in a particular way under the Biden administration or before is required to be in mandatory detention. That means no chance of bond while you wait. So I was just talking to a friend of mine who's an immigration attorney earlier today. She was telling me about a girl who came in

when she was 16 years old, it would have been under the Biden administration as an unaccompanied minor, got this particular visa. So following the law that Biden set up, graduated very near the top of her class in high school, now going to college and working at the same time, went in to get fingerprinted for her work permit, is in line for a visa, but there's only a certain number

of Guatemalan visas every year. So she's still 18 months away from getting the legal permanent resident, whatever. This is all very complicated stuff, but there's things that the attorneys tell you to do. This is what you do. You go and you get fingerprinted. She goes in to get fingerprinted.

They arrest her right there. Because they're not going after the violent criminals. They're not going after the kinds of people that killed Lake and Riley because it's harder to find them. It's much easier to find the people who are showing up to their hearings, showing up to get fingerprinted, and Stephen Miller has insisted that they need numbers. I think $3,000 a day is the number he has put on. He doesn't care if they're violent. He doesn't care how they came in.

If there's a plausible case to put them in handcuffs and put them in a private detention facility where we will pay upwards of $70,000. or more to cage them, we will then pay to have their American citizen children put in foster care. We then suffer all of the other knock-on effects of the fact that they've now been yanked out of a society. Just to keep a 20-year-old in a cage, she was then shipped down to Louisiana so that her lawyer would have, you know, can't defend her anymore because the lawyer's not barred there. Meanwhile, we are, there's a lot. How much more time do I have? Okay.

Meanwhile, a lot of countries are refusing to cooperate with us, just in the same way that a lot of cities are refusing to cooperate with us, just in the same way that a lot of cities are refusing to cooperate with this immigration policy. So what we've started to do is say, well, we're going to send you to a third country. So we have cut a deal with the DRC, Democratic Republic of Congo, that they will take our migrants. we will pay them some ungodly amount of American taxpayer dollars to take these migrants into the DRC and exchange, we get mineral rights. Talk about human trafficking. That is human trafficking as American policy, like selling bodies back to Africa,

but not selling because you're giving them money, but then selling for the mineral rights. Like, that's absolutely insane. And when it comes to ICE, a bunch of these guys, they got this $50,000. What I think, you know, everybody's struggling in this country. So they get this $50,000 bonus. A lot of them didn't realize they signed like a three, four year commitment to this. And they get tiered benefits and tiered income.

If they don't make their three or four year commitment, they have to pay this back to actually pay double since they had to pay taxes on it. And if they don't hit particular quotas, they don't get different tiered benefits. that's just bounty hunter stuff. Like that's gross. And so my point is, we have fought too hard to produce what Scott calls the greatest country in the world to allow this kind of barbarism.

Well, now it's moderator prerogative. And so I'll start just by asking you a question, Ryan. You mentioned everybody is struggling in this country. So after the historic Biden era surge, the people who were showing up to their hearings, et cetera, this kind of gets us back to the fundamental question of, Do they deserve to become Americans?

What about the effect on low-wage Americans? What about buying into the system of citizenship, speaking the language that allows you to read the founding documents and to engage in civic republicanism, lower-case, are, do all of the people who came in the last period and future people who might come, if the laws are lax again, do they deserve to be Americans? So I think levels of immigration, the question of levels of immigration is not actually. actually is not a question of principle. I think it's an empirical, pragmatic question.

It depends on how the economy is doing. It depends on what needs the country has at the time. It depends on the birth rate of people who are there. To me, I'm just shocked to see this conversation unfolding at the same time that birth rates are collapsing. I'm like, well, okay, like nobody has figured out how to turn around birth rates. Like, who do you think is going to take care of you and produce it? economy as you're growing if you want to just completely cut off migration and actually do what you know stephen miller wants what a hundred million people here or whatever revert he wants to

you know he wants to drive the numbers down but also stagnant lower lower level wages right well the idea first of all the idea that steven miller is actually trying to drive up wages i think is not you can't take it seriously um but yes i think that like we need more union protections we need of workplace inspections. We need to bring people out of the shadows. We need to make sure that businesses are not exploiting undocumented labor. That is

the thing that does it. In the 1980s, there was a system up from the 18th century up to the 1980s, people would go back and forth freely. I mean, you probably remember, you could drive to Mexico,

drive to Canada, which is just your driver's license. Ryan Grimm in the 80s most of fun. I mean, I was driving to Canada. I drove to Canada early 2000s just driver's license. Like, so... As far as I go from Louisville is Indiana. Occasionally, Tennessee. You can't do it anymore. You need a passport now.

But guest workers from Mexico would come up for the season and then they would go back. We locked things down. And so they stayed and then pulled their families up. So like, we're also not sensible

about what we want. We should be we should think more clearly about what it is that we want. If we wanted that population and their families to move over 30, even though they didn't want to, like they preferred what they had doing seasonal work, then we can do that. If I understand your argument correctly, you do say that we should smartly regulate immigration levels based on national priorities, yes? do you believe that that is how the Biden administration treated it? Do you believe they were smartly regulating immigration levels? Or do you believe they did not keep a handle on that?

I think it's pretty clear that they were kind of stunned themselves at what was going on. So what would you do differently? Because they had a lot of policies that were, you know, carrots, that were incentives for people to come. And so inevitably when you start to be more lenient. So people want people want to follow whatever the process is like 99% of the people Unless you somebody's like a murderer who's like on the run and they're trying to swim across Like 99% of people want to follow the process is not people's preferred process to like pay a coyote Pay the cartels to like get told by their friend what they're supposed to say at the border and then have an immigration attorney

That's that's not their preferred if you set up a rational system that is instead of spending $70,000 a year to give Geo Group money, like they're going to make 80% of the profit margin or whatever on that, to lock up this 20-year-old, hire another immigration judge. It's incredible how long it takes to get things through. We'll everybody get in line. The line is like forever. If instead of giving all the money to Geo Group in these private prison companies, we invested it in a rational system that could, handle asylum claims and handle other processes with some urgency and some seriousness, then we want the good people who go through that to stay here. We want to give people a

rational process. So I think the use of the phrase rational process is a smart way to look at it. And what we're living through now with the Trump administration enforcement policies, whether you quibble with the prioritization of it or not, is the reaction. to an irrational process. I mean, you yourself just admitted that the Biden administration was stunned and overwhelmed by what happened and made no effort, if I may, to instill any sort of rational process whatsoever. So now you're arguing for the installation of a rational process after we've already lived through four years of irrational millions upon millions of people coming here, some of whom, I think you would admit, shouldn't be here. And maybe some who should. But we have no idea who is who,

because of the irrationality of the system, which is essentially just the ignoring of U.S. immigration law. So the question that we as conservatives have now is, okay, we live through four years of an irrational lack of enforcement. We interpreted that as policy. Our policy is irrational, no enforcement of immigration laws. How are we supposed to react to that when we have people all over this country who feel like they're competing with this population for jobs, who feel like they're competing, with the population for housing who feel like they're being victimized, criminalized, or in some cases murdered by some people in this population. Is it good enough to say to those Americans, well, it was an irrational system, but we're now going to be the rational operators and you're just going to have to live with the results of what there seems to be some agreement was

absolutely irrational treatment of national immigration policy. We're not talking about a few hundred people here and there. Millions upon millions of people came to the United States. Many of them should not be here. Some of them perhaps could be here. The problem is we have no idea who's who. We have no idea which of them would benefit the United States of America. And we also, to Emily's point, have to be extremely careful about the signals that we send to the countries that produce the immigrants because any sort of leniency produces incentive. And right now, we're, we're not having any border crossings. We didn't pass any new laws. We did get a new president. The borders closed. It's the signal. It's the communication to that population. Don't come here right now.

That was not the signal that was being sent for the last four years. Sending signals, by the way, I would argue, is not a great way to your point to make a rational national policy. It depends on the politics of the person in the White House. We're going to send out vibes to the rest of the world. That's not great. But the vibe that we're sending out to the rest of the world right now, is at least respects existing U.S. law, the vibe that we were sending out said, the law doesn't matter, just get here, and we will find a way to keep you here. Regarding the bureaucracy that you brought up, by the way, I hear you talking about lawyers and courts and judges and that's the point.

The point is to make it so hard to get people out that they actually never leave. I think about this character, Kilmer-Rabrego Garcia, who broke into the country 15 or 16 years ago. Not a great guy. Abused his wife, apparently involved in some sort of, at least tangentially trafficking operation. Strong evidence.

He's part of some transnational terrorism gang. And somehow he's been able to live in the United States and have headlines written about him referring to him as Maryland man. He's gotten a free ride off the United States of America after breaking our laws and repeatedly disrespecting the laws that exist for people who actually are in this country. So I actually am tracking with you on the idea of rational immigration regulation.

We need more of X. Let's get more of X. We need less of Y. Let's screen out Y. I think that is actually a point of agreement between many liberals and conservatives. But a point of disagreement is we're just going to have to overlook the last four years, guys. Sorry, we're just going to have to let that millions upon millions of people stay here because it would be barbaric to go back in time and say, Wait a minute. Are we committing national suicide and we don't even know it? Well, Scott, that's my disagreement. Can I push on that question of rational? Because addressing an irrational system doesn't necessarily mean the response is going to be rational in and of itself. So is, for example, what we saw

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Just had to www.com slash afterparty and use code after party at checkout. That's 25% off when you use code Emily at cowboy colostrum.com slash afterparty. So is, for example, what we saw in Minnesota this winter? Was that a rational response? it is rational to try to enforce the law inside the United States of America. What I think is irrational is that you have governors and mayors in blue areas in this country who apparently believe they get to decide what federal laws are in force in their states based on who the president is. I mean, my view is we have a nullification crisis in this country. We have people who want to

nullify federal laws. We have people who want to nullify the authority and the supremacy, the United States government. We have people who want to nullify the authority of the chief executive of of this country. We have judges who want to nullify the authority of the President of the United States. And we even now have juries that want to nullify the rights of crime victims to seek justice against illegal radicals who come here and victimize them. I think, actually, what's irrational is that we're allowing certain public officials to nullify our federal system. I heard Tim Walls, the governor of Minnesota, refer to Minneapolis. as the new Fort Sumter.

I mean, I guess Democrats haven't changed all that much since the 1850s. I find this language to be utterly insane. You have Democrat governors. Put the shoes on the other feet. If you have Republican governors out referring to things as Civil War battles, we'd be in 24-7 coverage over at CNN right now. Instead, it's like, oh, well, it's just Tim Walz. I cannot even begin to imagine how someone who holds a position of responsibility and ran for vice president of United States, I guess since Calhoun, is out here calling for a new American Civil War.

Ryan, I'll let you respond, and then we're going to open up to Q&A from all of you. So one thing that's being nullified, though, actually is habeas corpus, and that's why I'm going back to the barbarity of what is being done here. It's not the idea of enforcing the law is not barbaric. is that the way they are doing it on a daily basis is utterly barbaric. They're not that I think 46 people have died in ice custody since since Trump took office. There's mostly young people. It's not like he's getting a lot of elderly people.

We should not be having a person die in ice custody once every two weeks or so. They're not getting decent medical treatment. Like the conditions under which they're living are. purposely barbaric so that people will give up their appeal process and will just deport. Should they be Americans, though?

If, like, for instance, this 16-year-old who came in graduated in college, she's working, she's following the rules, yes, there should be a path for her to become a citizenship, for her to become a citizen. A lot of these people in these detention

facilities have one habeas cases against the federal government, which is a very high bar to cross. What DHS is doing now is they will take the person out of the facility. They will take the handcuffs off because they understand there's rule of law. The judge has made this ruling. They managed to get it out of the immigration court into a real court. And the judge said, no, this is appalling what you're doing.

You have to release this person. They release them. They arrest them 10 seconds later because they say, They're, you know, we revoked their status. They're here in the country illegally. And they marched them right back into the facility. Like, that is insane to do to people. We cannot be a people that do that.

Yet we are at this very moment people who do that. Well, let's open it up to the audience on that note. Questions, please. And then we'll go to closing statements. If you would like to ask a question, please come back to the back and line up on the ramp. And while they're waiting, one point I'd make on Kilmar Berry, we go, so yeah, if he, if they had just tried to normally deport him, they would have won. Instead, they deported him to this El Salvador. Should he have stayed? Do you think he should be an American? I think he's the kind that if they can find enough, like, criminal background that put him through a process and then, you know, decide there. I don't know enough about his case. He has an existing deportation order. Now, I might agree with you that maybe they made a mistake, because they sent him back to the wrong place based on the ruling from the judge. But that doesn't negate the fact that he had due process.

He went to court and he has an existing deportation order. I think the common sense of American would say, would say, well, wait a minute, an illegal alien who came here, got a deportation order, and somehow he's living in the Maryland suburbs. They would have won that one if they didn't send him to a torture chamber in El Salvador. Let's go. We've got a good line here. So let's start right now. Thank you both.

On the topic of immigration, my question is about the case of Mahmood Khalil, who served as a spokesperson for the pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia University in 2024. Quil has been accused of leading activities that disturbed campus life, created a hostile environment that made many Jewish students feel unsafe, and involved the distribution of pro-Hamas propaganda fires. Do you believe that conduct of this nature merits his deportation from the United States as the Trump administration is seeking? feels like it's for Ryan no but all of that is untrue like none of that is none of that is true the reason that

Mahmoud Khalil was in the position that he was in people call him the leader of these protests he was not he was the mediator he was the negotiator because the most radical people who

participated in the protests who said all look do some of the things you're talking about because he was Palestinian had worked, you know, had spent his entire life in this cause, like he earned that credibility, that standing. There were an enormous number of Jewish students who he stood up for, who he worked with, who have spoken up passionately in his defense who were at these encampments. And so from left to right across the spectrum within the encampment, he had respect because he

was, just imagine the kind of person that can win the respect of that broad spectrum of people. So he would be the one that would be sent in to negotiate with Colombia. These are the things that the students are saying. Here's what Columbia is saying back. And he also had a decent ability to win the respect of Colombia. He's a little bit older. So he was none of those things. He didn't distribute Hamas flyers.

the only thing that they hit him with when they arrested him was this tweet from an organization that said something about the downfall of Western civilization, which he was not even involved with their social media or in any leadership capacity. And I don't even think was involved with that particular organization. So think about that. Like the worst thing they could find was an Instagram like real or whatever they call them of saying like we support the downfall. of Western civilization that wasn't even connected to him.

So if he's as bad a guy as you're talking about, I think you would be able to find a lot worse stuff. Now, to the broader point, I think when we welcome students into this country, we should teach them the virtues of free expression. That we may not agree with what you're saying, but we will fight to the death for your right to say it. And I don't care where you come from. We're not afraid of your speech.

Next question. Well, do I? Oh, you can go ahead. Yeah. Well done coming here prepared with the facts. You've got it right. Totally disagree with Ryan about this. The question I ask is this.

Let's just pretend everything he said is true. Pretend being the operative word. Do we need this person in our country? What is the benefit of having some dude in his mid-30s hanging out at Columbia University and indefinitely, even tangentially being affiliated with anti-Western radicalism, anti-Americanism, et cetera, et cetera. When I think about our immigration system, I think, is it good for this person to be here? I don't think this person loves America. I don't think he believes in what we believe in fundamentally as an American democracy. And I don't think his

ideologies are necessarily compatible with the concept of America. And I think he's made that pretty darn obvious. And so when I think about the visa system and all the people that we import from around the world to be on our universities and in other places, question A, do we need this person here? Is this person of any benefit to our society? And I think if you ask that question about him and a lot of other people at Columbia, what is the benefit to America's universities to have a tent city set up at what used to be a great learning institution. There's no benefit. Zero.

None. So I think he should be deported. And I don't think he's the only one. And the Trump State Department has moved on a lot of these people that we gave visas to. My view is universities ought to be hotbeds of American exceptionalism, not anti-Western radicalism. And the sooner we learn that less than the better off will be. All right.

Next question. Scott, I was struck by your opening statement where you mentioned that students that don't agree with American values should be deported. And I wanted to ask your opinion on a controversy that has since been overshadowed. Some time ago, hundreds of students were deported or had their visas revoked for their pro-Palestinian activism. And I wanted to ask you, were all of these students violating American values? Well, without looking at each individual case, I wouldn't be able to tell you specifically about each individual one. My view is that if you've been invited to the United States to be here to learn at one of our universities, have you been granted the great privilege of coming here to learn from American universities,

that, yes, I think we ought to have some expectation that, at a minimum, you don't come here to try to foment the downfall of the United States. Does that mean supporting— And speak against the ills—and speak about the ills, supposed ills of Western civilization. What about if Israel, Scott? Should they be able to say, we don't support Israel? Should students on visas be able to protest Israel at Columbia or GW? Well, I would say what was happening at these universities was not simply protesting Israel. It was the harassment, the violent harassment of Jewish students, which are two very, very different things.

Very different things. And the universities have admitted as much that they allow this to occur. The universities admitted that under threat of like, admitted under the threat of, like, admitted under the threat of getting all of their, you know, federal money taken away from them and having, you know, congratulations. The federal government did take over basically a bunch of, a bunch of universities. But Rumaeza Ozturk, for instance, she was one of four authors of an op-ed that was calling for the support, calling for the Student Senate to support a resolution that was critical

of Israel. the student senate passed that resolution it was BDS yeah the student senate passed it like I don't know student senate's like these are not actually hotbeds of radicalism those are the kids who like want to go to GW no offense

like these are kids who like have their eye on their next thing even they were like yeah we support this and Ramesa Oss-Turk was one of four authors on this and so I think it is insane what has happened in our country where you can, as an immigrant here, as a student, be as critical as you want, really, of the United States. You just can't be critical of Israel.

And also, and this is not personal, but there is so much kind of money pouring in to push us in that direction. Even Salem Media, where you do your show, right? Brad Parscale, who is the chief strategy officer there, is a registered foreign agent for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Like, this is an American, I think it's American, right? Salem, yeah. It's an American media company whose chief strategy officer is a foreign agent registered for the state of Israel.

And 30% of this company is owned by Lara Trump and Don Trump. Jr. Like, what? So before we're talking about, like, who, you know, what is America? Who, who should be an American? It's like, are, can we as Americans discuss this? Let's get Scott's response. Yeah, so you seem to have some issue with Israel having a presence in the United States or even on, even on American.

I think we should be sanctioning. Even. Yes. Even on American universities. I think they should be sanctioned, yes. Do you, I think it should be, I think, I think, I think, I think, I think, I think, I think, I think it should be criminal for an American media company to take money from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, because I think they should be under sanctions for what they did in Gaza.

Do you believe that American universities should be taking money from, say, Qatar? If we want to do a broad sanctioning around human rights... You seem to have singled out one country, which, by the way, is an ally of the United States. They committed a genocide. Ridiculous. Qatar, a lot of human rights problems there. UAE, a lot of universities, all of this country, Saudi Arabia. Universities all of this country do take Qatari money.

I'm asking you, does your concern about internationalism exist beyond Israel? I'd be okay with banning that too. The good news for you is that Trump is destroying all of their capacity to make any money by launching a war on behalf of Israel that is destroying the Gulf economies. I don't know if you saw this Saudi Arabia just told. some charity in New York City that the $200 million a year they're giving them isn't coming anymore because their stuff is all broken. Like the money that's coming out of the Gulf was coming from fossil fuels and we launched

a war at the behest of Israel and it is leading to the collapse of their economies. UAE now wants a credit default swap or something. They want some currency swap from the U.S. It's comical. We're not going to have to worry about Gulf money. I'd recommend that we resolve this in closing statements and then take one more question. Sound good? We're already way behind.

Thank you guys for coming. I'm a big fan of breaking points and Ryan's work at DropSite. And so my interest at this event comes from my own personal background being a immigrant. So I'm a dual citizen of both the U.S. and Algeria. And my dad in the 90s came here because of the Civil War and also that he's an educated young man and he had an interest in coming to America. so he won the lottery. He applied, did the whole embassy interview, and came to New York City in the 90s. So, you know, he worked multiple jobs and went back to Algeria, married my mother, had me, this was by the time he was a citizen. And so, you know, achieved what is seen as the American dream,

sending me to college, moving to Texas, being able to buy a house. And, but since Trump has taken office, he has lost a sense of optimism for this country. Like he sees that this country is heading in a very concerning direction. So my question is, what is the future of this country when even immigrants who have come here on their own desire don't share an optimism and see hope for this country? Oh, interesting. Scott, I'll throw that one your way. Sure.

Well, first of all, it sounds like based on your description of what happened, your father, follow all the rules, embraced what it means to be an American. and has had quite a success with it. And so I congratulate your family, and I congratulate you on embracing and assimilating into what it means to be an American. I think that is a terrific story regarding optimism. You know, look, my view is, as I stated in my opening statement, I believe we live in the greatest country in the history of the world. And I don't really alter that opinion based on political undulations. Win an election, you feel good about it.

Losing an election, you feel bad about it. To me, the top line is we still live in the greatest country ever devised. And so right now you, I think it's fair to argue, have some political problem with Donald Trump. Perfectly fine. Perfectly your right to believe that. And I, of course, would have had political problems with Joe Biden or Barack Obama. But that would have never shaken my belief that we live in the greatest country or in my optimism that we have the correct values in system.

to maintain being the greatest country. And I think that's where conservatives and liberals are divergent in today's political culture. Gallup poll measured this just the other day, a few months ago, a couple months ago. Do you have patriotism for America? Do you have pride in America? You know, the conservative number stays pretty well up

in the 80s and 90s. The liberal number has fallen dramatically. It takes up a little when Democrats win, but it basically has tracked down to the bottom of the grid because they've become to believe that America is rotten at its core. I don't believe that. I believe America is fundamentally a force for good in the world because it's the greatest system ever devised

and because we have withstood so much that proves that over time. So I think right now I'm not surprised to hear you say that you have some disappointment with Trump. That's your politics. What I would counsel you is, whether you like Donald Trump or don't, or whether you're optimistic about the country because he's the president or not,

there will always be another election, and I don't know who's going to win, but you're going to vote in it, and because you're allowed to vote in it, you live in the greatest country ever devised by man. You should be optimistic about that always. And it sounds like your family recognized that and took advantage of it as they should have,

and I congratulate you for it. Thank you for your question. Did you have any? Excellent. All right, well, since Scott began, Ryan is going to have the first word in closing statements, and then we will conclude with Scott's closing statement as well. So, Ryan, you have three minutes.

Yeah, I mean, I just, I would go back to what I started with, that the thing that genuinely does make this country special is that are the ideas of the Enlightenment in human rights, democracy, freedom, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, those ideas like seeped right into the Declaration of Independence and then into the Constitution. And debate and disagreement is central to that.

And to come to a place where on the one hand, thousands, tens of thousands, it's growing exponentially of people are picked up off the street, not for committing any crime, but for following a policy that whether you disagree with or agree with it was the policy that was in place at the time. You can say policy of Clinton's was bad, the policy of Obama was bad, Bush was bad,

Obama, like Biden, even Trump, like a lot of people came in under the first Trump administration who were now, you know, followed the rules at the time, who are now showing up at their appointments and being dragged off to for-profit detention centers where they are like you've, I don't know, just Google some of the videos

that have leaked out of these places. Like, they're un-American. And then on the flip side of that is this idea that we're going to use the threat of that to muzzle your speech that to me is also deeply, deeply un-American. I just recoil from it.

That is new. I think World War I, there were some, you know, we were like pretty insane. Wilson was pretty insane for a little while about criticism of the war, Eugene Debs, you know, like, and a lot of that was like targeted at immigrants because there were a lot of like socialists who'd come over. in that earlier wave,

that's the only, like, remote parallel to it. And that is a source of shame for us in the United States when we look back at what Wilson was doing. When we look back at the Japanese internment camps, like we, I was always taught that that was a deep source of shame for us. And now to take people, because of their political views, and say that the secretary has determined

that you are national security, security threat and you round them up and put them in prison. I'll just finish real quickly with these two Iranian women. Living in Los Angeles, legal permanent residence had totally legitimate asylum claims. The mom had spent time in an Iranian prison. The daughter, when she was 12, participated in Turkey in this dance competition. And it aired on satellite TV in Iran. and when it aired there, all hell came down on her and her mom.

Her mom was beaten over it. She was expelled from school. She got into another school. They learned about it. It was expelled again. They came to the United States. And I talked to the daughter just the other day, and she said, the thing that my mom was most excited about when she came here to the United States was being able to finally speak her mind.

And she was like, my mom's pretty opinionated. You could tell the, like this, the 25-year-old girl, no, like very little politics. Like, didn't seem to have much an opinion on anything. She just lives in North Hollywood and check her Instagram account out. It's like, this is not a political person, but she's like, my mom has a lot of opinions. And she was like, finally, I can speak out. She did not like this war. She does not like the wannabe shaw.

They turned on her. They out her to Laura Lumer as related to Qasem Soleimani. no fact-checking by the State Department whatsoever was not true, is not true. They are still in prison. She has this autoimmune disorder that has her blood, her hemoglobin levels down to like six at this point, which if anybody knows, it's extremely dangerous.

We don't need Iranian internment now. This is not who we are, or I hope it's not who we are, is what would be my argument. Scott, you have actually four minutes tack on an extra for... Sure. Well, I just want to thank you for moderating this, Ryan. Thanks for the fair debate. Thank you all for listening. I think when we have debates, it's fair to reflect on where we have points of agreement, where we have points of disagreement. I actually think we found some agreement tonight. The original question was, does every immigrant deserve citizenship? I think we both agree. That's not true. So that's a no. So that is a point of agreement. It sounded like we had some points of agreement about the need to bring. some rational thought to a national immigration system that benefits the country. I think that's good. And I think on those points, that is the foundation for the possibility of reaching some kind of a solution. So as you all think about what our government is supposed to be doing or what our policymakers are

supposed to be doing, I think that's how they should be looking at these debates. Obviously, I have strongly held views about it. So does he, not all these views are necessarily in conflict, although some of them are. And the, and the mission that you all have is students and eventual policy makers is to think to yourself, is my mission here to only focus on the points of disagreement or should I be looking for the nuggets of agreement that might drive us towards some national progress? So I would just close by saying, that's a good lesson from, I think, a public debate like this. Before you close, can I get, can I get a little agreement on something? Like, how about the mandatory detention for people who are following the rules? What rules? The rules that,

The rules when they came here illegally? No, she didn't come here illegally. She came here as a 16-year-old Accountantibre Minor. She got this. It's called a J-I-V-S visa. She's got the visas. I'm open to discussion about individual cases, but only to the point...

It's not an individual case. It's mandatory detention. But only to the point where it doesn't bog down the global question, which is if you let millions upon millions upon millions of people in, and the American people demand that you do something about it, they are not going to be sad. satisfied with saying, well, we got a case here, we got a case there, and we just can't do anything about it.

That's not going to be acceptable to the population that elected this administration. What about the Congo thing? I'm willing. Selling people to Congo for mineral rights. I think you're misdescribing this, but whatever. If it's right, we could say that's bad. Next debate is on the mineral rights of Congo. We'll look forward to the three of you who show up for that.

So I, look, I think you could debate and probably should debate deportation priorities. You've raised that as a topic today. I think that's a legitimate point. Actually, if you look at the case of Minnesota, Emily, which you raised, they changed deportation priorities midstream. I mean, they removed certain leadership from the ground. They sent Tom Homan. he refocused the DHS activities in Minnesota on criminal and violent populations.

Things calm down. I think that is an instructive item. So I think that was an interesting point to raise. I still, to your point, Emily, think leniency or any kind of signal that, hey, certain kinds of illegal immigration, we're going to look the other way, is not good national policy. I do take your point about enforcement priorities, deployment of resources, because it goes to the core question. what's best for the nation? And that's where I'll close. The only question we have to answer is, is it good for America?

Is this person being here good for our country? Do we want this person here? Do they benefit our society? Do they love our country? Or are they here for other reasons? And to me, that is where a lot of the questions are in the current administration that they're trying to answer on behalf of the American people. who elected them to do just that.

People were horrified at the lack of immigration enforcement for four years. And now we have immigration enforcement. And look, we're going to have an election in November, and this may be a topic. And then we'll have an election in 2028, and this may be a topic, and the American people may have shifting attitudes about it. And the last thing I'll say is, that's perfectly fine, because that's how we settle our differences and debates in this country. We debate and then we vote. And then we do it all again two years later and then we do it all again two years after that.

And that is the beauty of America. We get to decide our priorities every two years. And the ones that we decided in 2024 were this. That was crazy what they did. Somebody needs to fix it, which I would argue is what they're doing right now. Let's get a round of applause for our debaters. No, I don't know about you all, but I actually take this from Ryan.

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That's tups, T-O-U-P-S, and co-com slash after-party and code after-party for 25% off your first order. Thank you to everyone for being here tonight in this classroom where I took like history or whatever. It's been a pleasure. Thank you to Ryan. Thank you to Scott. Thank you to Young America's Foundation.

and the guys over at GW. Yap. Thank you to everybody for listening or attending or watching this edition of After Party. And I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your evening. Thanks, everyone.