The Charlie Kirk Show - From the Archive: Charlie Debates Illegal Immigration with an Immigrant

Episode Date: October 24, 2026

Thanks to President Trump’s deportation wave the immigration debate is burning as hot as ever, so it’s high time to revisit Charlie's conversation at Florida State University with an immigrant student. In the back and forth Charlie demonstrates why borders matter, why western values are worth protecting, and why it's important to continue cracking down on those illegally inside America. Watch every episode ad-free on members.charliekirk.com!    Get new merch at charliekirkstore.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you could protect your wealth with noble gold investments at nobelgoldinvestments.com. That is noblegoldinvestments.com. Hi, Charlie, great to meet you. Thank you for letting me speak in your platform. First of all, I really disagree with you in a lot of things. Be respectful, guys. It's fine. Part of what makes America a great country. It does. It does. America's a great country, but I don't like your t-shirt. I'm going to get started by saying, I'm an immigrant, and, well, I don't understand why you would want to deport all, like,

some of my friends and family who have been working hard in this country, and that, like, they're being persecuted right now, so I just, I don't get the whole process of it, and it feels like I'm being discriminated against, even though I'm here through legal means, but just can you please give me an answer for that? And before that, if, like, let's say, if I would come up here and say, like, I'm a, illegal immigrant and I'm here trying to debate you, would you call ICE? I mean, Tom Holman would probably see the video and you'd probably go back to your true country. Okay.

I mean, that's how it works, right? But let me just ask you a question. What is the fair way a country, in your ideal, you're king. What's your name? Sorry. I'm Claudio, sir. Yeah, Claudio. And this is just a thought exercise, but it's very revealing.

You are king. And you find out that there are 30 million uninvited people in your country. What do you do with them? Oh, in this case, I try to find the most humane way of sending them back to her country. But first of all, I want to say... That's what we're doing. Wait, let me just say something. That's what we're doing.

Let me just say something. Pink Claudio, long-lived the king. I'm not a... I'm not a dictator at all, but... I'm, of course, I'm saying it's a helpful thought exercise. I get it. And all I'm saying is you were talking about, like, in the past couple of people that came up here, like, America first, trying to get, like, the best for our country

and, like, increasing the productivity and getting us to be, like, the best country possible. Which I agree, like, I love this country. But a lot of this country is built on. on like illegal immigrant labor. And it's definitely like a bad means, but it's been a good result somehow. Like I'm sure you know people, like you have friends from like home that own businesses that employ these types of people

that are very productive and very, very honest, and just hardworking trying to get a better life. And a lot of those people are very close to me. So it's just a very heartbreaking situation for me, but I understand. Okay, yeah, but I mean, and you gave the answer if you were in charge. I guess this is another important question. What should the punishment be then if you break into somebody else's country uninvited and stay there without welcome? Well, I really, I don't know what the punishment should be.

I'm not a lawyer. No, no, that's okay. I'm just asking, totally. Here's our position is that it is against federal law to come into America, right? Sure, sure. You're not allowed to come into the country without invite. So that's against the law. So if we can do one or two things, and there really isn't, there's very little in the middle.

There's some nuance, but we can say we are not going to enforce the law because, you know, we're just going to say that doesn't matter. Or we could say, look, the law is blind, and when you break the law, it must apply to all people. Now, I think you're a little different because I don't want you to loop in. So what country did you emigrate from? Are you going to, like, discriminate against me? No, I'm actually. I'm going to do the opposite, actually. Yeah. What I'm curious?

I'm Mexican. Okay, fine. But you came here legally, correct? I did, sir. Okay, great. Well, if I didn't, you'd be calling the police when you... No, but it's not a racial thing. If you were Polish and you overstayed a visa, then you should be... But hold on, you followed the rules. So you're exempt. The people that you know didn't follow the rules. True. So I divide America not into Mexican and white and Hispanic and white into rule follower and rule breaker.

Yeah. And so when someone breaks our rules, there must be justice done. There must be a punishment. And the most humane way is you go back to your country. of origin. We'll do it humanely. We'll do it correctly. But if you are not invited into a home, into a dorm room, into a living room, the standard applies to entire country. I've been telling you about Patriot Mobile for a long time now. And many of you have made the switch. This is for the rest of you. What are you waiting for? Every month, you stay with one of the big carriers. Your money goes to a company that doesn't share your values. Patriot Mobile is the real deal for 12 years now.

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That's Patriotmobile.com slash Charlie Friday. Or call 972 Patriot and use the promo code Charlie Friday. Free phone, two months free. Switch today. Terms and conditions apply. Now, to your point, you might be right. There might be some economic disruption. However, you know what happens if you have economic disruption in the labor pool?

Wages are going to go up. And you guys are going to see your wages go up. Who is going to occupy those jobs? So this is a little bit insulting. I don't think you mean it this way, that illegal immigrants are nothing more than just kind of like... No. These are my people, so how could I be insulting? I'm even defending.

I don't think you mean it this way. But broadly, when we talk about immigration, there's a talking about, like, well, who's going to pick your grapefruits and, like, who's going to serve you Chipotle? You've probably heard this before, right? I have, yeah. Who's going to clean your hotel room? It's us, yeah. But hold on, embedded in that is kind of a really derogatory that's like, they're kind

of just like a permanent surf class here to serve us. I think that's like really creepy and weird, actually. These are human beings. They're more than just kind of economic utility. Yeah, no, but like in the history of the U.S., like we've first had like the Italian and Polish immigrants and they first served those jobs. And then they became like economically sufficient. But they were welcomed.

true but it was a different time in history like of course but i suppose the the broader question is one of justice which is that to what should a country do when your sovereignty has been so massively violated for a long period of time and a country seeks to be a country becomes something else it becomes a colony or it becomes just kind of a random area if a country does not have loyalty to its own people and and if it has loyalty to foreigners or to an oligarchy it ceases to be a country So it's not the most popular argument. Well, actually the American people voted for it, and it sounds cruel, but it's very simple.

It's like, look, this is not against any of you personally, but you have to have the law be the first and last ushering of what a government does in this situation. And by the way, what I was saying about you, I'm getting back to you, you deserve to be applauded because you guys followed the rules. And it's not fair to people like you who followed the rules

to all of a sudden have line cutters. Here's the equivalent. You guys waited in line like two and a half hours to go get a meal at a restaurant and someone shows up and just cuts in line. What was the first thing you would say? That's not fair. And you would be right. And the same with immigration, please. Yeah.

Wait, let me just add a layer to this and then I'm probably done. But like, let's say that the people that's cutting like in front of the line, like, that's like some of my boys like that I know that they're being like persecuted like back home. them and their families, they're like in like drug-related, like, wars and violence. And the only way out, like, the only way they're not going to die or, like, suffer a very bad fate is if they escape and they break the American law. But that's the only way they're going to survive. So like, hold on. Hold on. Two thoughts on this. Number one, if that is correct, we have a special asylum status that they could seek legally at a port of entry that they could go through a whole process. But if they're being persecuted, don't they not deserve, but it wouldn't be justified to cut

line? No. Secondly, well, it might be justified in their mind, but it's not justified in the rule administers mind to make exception for it. But let me just, let me make a more important point, though. If we all of a sudden say that if you have a lot of gang violence and issues, I mean, like, we have a lot of gang violence and issues. Like, what are we talking about here? True. Like, we're a more dangerous country than half of the Central American countries. We're far more dangerous than El Salvador. And we could, we can make an example. If that is the criteria, like all of South America should be allowed into America. Basically, I mean, it, it idea is that at some point you have almost no standard whatsoever and instead here's my perspective

we should empower those people to go fix their own country we should empower them to go make el salvador great again which is a great country now okay in nicaragua honduras yes please final so wouldn't like a good way to start is like trying to lower the the demand for drugs in in america because a lot of the drugs that are like being produced and being fought over in south America are going to be supplied to the U.S. for American consumers? Yeah, so how would you recommend lowering demand? I have no idea. Like, what would you do? I don't know. I mean, demand and supply are two different issues, right?

I mean, the first part of demand is that way too many people get into, and I talked to my earlier point, they get into a thought pattern that substances are going to bring me flourishing, which I think is wrong. But yes, I think, look, the drug cartels are richer than ever before, and we have more drugs legalized than any time in the last 40 years. So something doesn't fit. So obviously drug legalization is not impoverishing them. The biggest way, though, that we stop these third world countries from being, you know, tin pot despotic dictatorships is we have to stop subsidizing their oligarchy through foreign aid. And then, yes, you're right, the Chinese Communist Party is pumping tons of money into these countries. But finally,

and I know this sounds a little bit cruel, is that I care far more about the suffering of Americans than the suffering of other people's countries first. I would too, yeah. And you have to. You have to look after your own people. You have to draw the line. And it's the old adage, right, guys? If your plane is going down, what do they tell you to do first?

You put your mask on first and then the mask on the person that might not be able to put a mask on an infant or someone that might be infirmed. It's the same way as a country. We need to put our own oxygen mask on first, and then we can worry about helping other people. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Thank you. For more on many of these stories and news you can trust. Go to charliekirk.com.