1NC

Text: The U.S. Congress should pass and the necessary states should ratify a Constitutional
Amendment that confirms unauthorized migrants in the United States are guaranteed
elementary and secondary public education by the Thirteenth Amendment. The Amendment
should instruct the courts to interpret it to reverse the plenary powers doctrine. The
appropriate number of the fifty states will ratify the Amendment.

Amendments solve better and avoid backlash.

SEF 9 No Time to Lose- Why America Needs an Education Amendment to the Constitution.
The Southern Education Foundation, The Southern Education Foundation is a not-for-profit
foundation created in 1937. Their main goal is to promote quality education for traditionally
disadvantaged students, including the poor and African Americans, (2009). Retrieved from
http://www.southerneducation.org/getattachment/43e3f5bb-714f-47c3-85ad-
ece27529f99f/No-Time-Lose-Why-America-Needs-an-Education-Amendm.aspx
To date,
at least 45 states have been party to lawsuits initiated by low income groups, often
comprised largely of members of minority groups, who argue that public education in the states
in which they reside is inadequate to meet specified achievement norms set forth in state
constitutions.46 Depending upon the language of the state constitutional provision at issue, the
courts have variously articulated the standard of achievement to be used for purposes of
assessing education adequacy.
The common approaches have been to define adequacy as (1) the spending levels of districts of schools with high levels of
performance; (2) the spending necessary for specific resources (qualified teachers, certain pupil:teacher ratios, sufficient textbooks,
etc.) that professionals judge to be adequate; or (3) a level of spending sufficient to bring all students to some adequate level of
outcomes, which itself needs to be explained.

The results of the litigation have been variable, as have the theories used by experts to evaluate ways to achieve adequacy and methods for
determining projected costs.

As documented in voluminous literature, some adequacy lawsuits have resulted in increases in funding and other mandated policy and practice
changes for prevailing parties. Others have achieved only partial success and have been unable to realize the full desired impact. Still others
have prompted public demands for education improvements even when formal litigation has failed.
In most cases, courts have
shied away from requiring recalcitrant state executives or legislatures to provide the necessary
resources for fulsome implementation of remedies, frustrating the potential transformative
impact of such litigation. Many such lawsuits are still pending.
In states with large numbers of low income people and limited tax bases, state defendants have sometimes asserted simple lack of money to
provide resources for the achievement of required remedial action.
In these cases, geography and inability of states
or local subdivisions to comply with state constitutional provisions have become a reality that
state courts are loath to address. The absence of a federal obligation or duty to provide a
baseline of resources or monies necessary to ensure compliance speaks to the need for a new
arrangement, a new relationship between the states and the federal government in relation to
public education finance.
Education adequacy cases, moreover, are unable to address a pernicious aspect of disparate
financing and resourcing of public educationradical inequality in the capacities of discrete
states to raise requisite funds and resources or the disinclination to do so for reasons unrelated
to what students need for a quality opportunity to learn. The interstate issues, reflective of
demographics, in addition to tax bases of varying dimension and productivity, and diverse
political inclinations regarding the role of government and education, can only be addressed
through federal leadership. Unless students are to be forever consigned to geography as destiny, the federal government must
be called upon to address these concerns.
 1NC
Secondary Education means courses effecting school credit---our ev is exclusive.
U.S. Court of Appeals Eleventh Circuit 16 CARVER MIDDLE SCHOOL GAY-STRAIGHT
ALLIANCE, an unincorporated association, H.F., a minor by and through parent Janine
Faughnan, Plaintiffs - Appellants, versus SCHOOL BOARD OF LAKE COUNTY, FLORIDA, Defendant
- Appellee. No. 15-14183 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT 842
F.3d 1324; 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 21702; 26 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 1055 December 6, 2016,
Decided
The Equal Access Act applies to any public secondary school which receives Federal financial assistance and permits noncurricular student
groups to use school facilities. 20 U.S.C. 4071(a)(b). The Act defines secondary school as a public school which provides secondary
education as determined by State law. Id. 4072(1) (emphasis added). So we must determine what secondary
education means under Florida law and whether Carver provides it. Although no reported decisions of the Florida courts answer this
question, the goal of the federal courts is to try to get the same result that would be reached in the state courts. Oliva v. Pan Am. Life Ins. Co.,
448 F.2d 217, 221 (5th Cir. 1971). To reach that goal, we must review how Florida law uses the term secondary education. After surveying the
relevant provisions of Florida law, we conclude that secondary
education, at least, means providing courses
through which students can obtain high school credit.
Florida law does not expressly define secondary education, but it does define the substantially similar term adult secondary education in its
K-20 Education Code. Fla. Stat. 10001013. Adult
secondary education means courses through which a
person receives high school credit that leads to the award of a high school diploma or courses
of instruction through which a student prepares to take the high school equivalency
examination. Id. 1004.02(4) (emphasis added). Because this section defines a term, we afford it great weight. See Antonin Scalia &
Bryan Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 228 (2012).

Adult modifies secondary education only to distinguish the kind of student who receives
the education . Adult secondary education is defined within the chapter of the Education Code entitled Public Postsecondary
Education. Fla. Stat. ch. 1004. Later in the same chapter, Florida law establishes that locally governed state colleges have two roles: the
primary role is to provide postsecondary academic education and career degree education, Fla. Stat. 1004.65(5), and the subsidiary role . .
. includes the offering of programs in . . . adult secondary education. Id. 1004.65(6) (emphasis added). Adult signifies that it is adults, not
adolescents, who receive education under this chapter.

Other provisions of the Education Code also suggest that the term secondary education
means courses through which students can obtain high school credit . One provision grants certain state
colleges authority to develop charter schools that offer secondary education. Id. 1002.33(5) (emphasis added). That provision establishes
that students can graduat[e] from high school at these charter schools, id., which supports the definition in section 1004.02 that secondary
education includes courses for which high school credit is available. Another
provision requires the Department of
Juvenile Justice to provide an educational program that includes, separately, [s]econdary
education and [h]igh school equivalency examination preparation. Id. 1003.51(2)(h). To be sure, the
definition of adult secondary education in section 1004.02 includes preparation for equivalency exams, and section 1003.51(2)(h) suggests
that secondary education does not include that preparation. But this provision raises doubt only as to whether preparation for equivalency
exams falls within secondary education. It does not suggest that secondary education excludes courses through which students can obtain
high school credit. Finally, with a few exceptions, colleges and universities in Florida require students to obtain a high school diploma before
enrolling in programs that provide post-secondary education. Fla. Stat. 1007.263(2)(3) (associate degrees); State Univ. Sys. of Fla., Reg.
6.002(1)(d) (bachelors degrees). Because post-secondary education comes after secondary education, these provisions suggest that
secondary education encompasses courses provided for high school credit . When read together, these
provisions establish that
a public school provides secondary education if it provides courses through
which students can obtain high school credit.
Instead of arguing about whether Carver provides secondary education, both parties argue about whether Carver is a secondary school under
Florida law. The district court ruled that Carver is not a secondary school. Until July 1, 2013, Florida law defined secondary schools as
schools that primarily serve students in grades 6 through 12. Fla. Stat. 1003.413(1) (2012) (repealed 2013). The district court ruled, and the
Board agrees, that because the legislature repealed the definition, it intended to exclude middle schools from the term secondary school. The
Alliance and H.F. counter by citing several provisions that use the term secondary school as if it encompasses middle schools.

We do not find it persuasive that Florida repealed section 1003.413, which included middle schools as secondary schools. To be sure,
secondary school is ordinarily understood as an institution that provides secondary
education. See Secondary School, Websters New International Dictionary 2261 (2d ed. 1961). But if we concluded that
Carver is not a secondary school under state law, that conclusion would not foreclose the
possibility that Carver could still provide secondary education under state law.
The dozens of Florida statutes that use the term secondary school do so inconsistently. For example, one provision reads, It is the intent of
the Legislature to provide assistance to all public secondary schools, with a primary focus on lowperforming middle and high schools. Fla. Stat.
1007.35(2)(b) (emphases added); cf. id. 381.986 (prohibiting medical marijuana [o]n the grounds of a preschool, primary school, or
secondary school). This provision suggests that middle schools are secondary schools. Yet, as the Board correctly argues, the definition of
school suggests the opposite because it appears to equate secondary and high schools, id. 1003.01, and another provision suggests that
only high schools are secondary schools because Florida law requires secondary schools to provide a course of study and instruction in the safe
and lawful operation of a motor vehicle, id. 1003.48. Because the term in the Equal Access Act that matters is secondary education, not
secondary school, we need not delve into this tangle of provisions.

We conclude that secondary education, under Florida law, means at least courses through which a
person receives high school credit that leads to the award of a high school diploma. Id. 1004.02(4).
Carver Middle School provides courses through which students can obtain high school credit. The Equal Access Act applies to Carver Middle
School.

Violation---the plan changes things in schools unrelated to instruction---Vote NEG---there is

an endless list of things related to education which wrecks topic education and explodes
limits---that destroys clash and the prep burden---precision is independent because our ev
explicitly defines 2 words in the resolution and is from a federal circuit court.

The AFF doesnt spec their agent---voting issue: undermines quality of education analysis and
NEG ground---2AC clarification spikes links and pre-round prep.
 1NC
Text: The United States federal government should confirm that unauthorized migrants in the
United States are guaranteed elementary and secondary public education by the Fourteenth
Amendment.

CP solves the whole case and avoids the Courts DA.

 1NC
Gerrymandering will get struck down---Kennedy is key.
Roeder & Druke 10-4 Oliver Roeder, Galen Druke, senior writers for FiveThirtyEight, 2017
(What Justice Kennedys Silence Means For The Future Of Gerrymandering, FiveThirtyEight,
October 4th, Available Online at https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-justice-kennedys-
silence-means-for-the-future-of-gerrymandering/, Accessed 10-22-2017)

By not opening his mouth, Justice Anthony Kennedy may have tipped his hand in one of the
biggest Supreme Court cases of the year. If history is any indication and although its a handy guide, its
hardly infallible things dont look good for extreme partisan gerrymandering .

The Supreme Court is hearing a case on whether partisan gerrymandering can be considered
unconstitutional, and Kennedy is likely to be the deciding vote . (For more on why, listen to our podcast on the
case.) Wisconsin is appealing a decision by a lower court, which ruled that the way Republicans crafted the states electoral maps in 2010 was
illegal. The
attorneys for the state, who are defending the maps, got plenty of questions from
Kennedy , while the Wisconsin Democrats, who want the maps struck down, got none . Kennedy
spoke 10 times during the state of Wisconsins arguments. He asked five questions and made
five statements.

If you get a lot of questions, youre going to lose , Adam Liptak, The New York Times Supreme Court reporter, told
FiveThirtyEight in 2015.

Justices arent just asking questions to get information from the lawyers arguing their cases . In
some ways, the questions arent meant for the lawyers at all. The justices ask questions to signal their positions
to their fellow members of the court , and to potentially sway other justices to their side. If theyre
skeptical of one sides argument, they often pepper that side with queries. Chief Justice John Roberts has even described the lawyers as a
backboard the questions bounce off them and come right back to the bench.

A body of academic research has confirmed this conventional wisdom, showing empirically
that questions from the justices are usually bad news for the party on the receiving end . The
number of questions, their length, their linguistic content and even the tone of voice in which
theyre asked are all statistically significant factors in predicting the courts eventual decision .
Bryce Dietrich, a political scientist at the University of Iowa, provided us with data on the
questions Kennedy has asked in cases from 1988 to 2014, gathered from transcripts of the oral arguments.
There are 5,151 lines in these transcripts that Kennedy directed toward either the petitioner (the
party asking the high court to hear the case) or the respondent (the party that won the case in the lower court) when asking a
question.1

That data shows that Kennedy is no different from the rest of the court : You dont want to be
on the receiving end of his questions . When Kennedy votes for the respondent (which would
be the Wisconsin Democrats, in this case) he directs 93.3 words to them ( 57.5 percent of his
speech). When he votes against the respondent, he directs 102.0 words to them (61.1 percent
of his speech).

And on
Tuesday, he directed zero words to the respondent . Historically, he directed zero words
toward the party he went on to vote for 272 times , out of 1,022 cases in this data set. He directed zero
words toward the party he wound up voting against only 177 times.

The plan causes backlash that saps court capital---its a deviation from the political norm and
is perceived as court overreach.
HLR 11 Harvard Law Review, a law review published by an independent student group at
Harvard Law School, 2011(Advisory Opinions and the Influence of the Supreme Court Over
American Policymaking, Harvard Law Review, Vol. 124, June, Available Online at
https://harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/vol124_advisory_opinions.pdf,
Accessed 08-27-2017, p.2074-2077)
The problem with this view lies in the assumption that the Justices time is the only constraint
on their power to strike down statutes repugnant to the Constitution. In fact, the Court is
politically constrained in its exercise of judicial review: the more it deviates from the nations
political mainstream by striking down democratically enacted legislation, the more it risks an
unwelcome backlash that imposes reputational costs on the Court in excess of the benefits it derives from
invalidating disfavored legislation.53 In short, the Supreme Court,54 like Congress, has only so much political

capital to expend in realizing its ideal state of American politics.

In assessing the Courts power relative to the elected branches, it is first necessary to be clear about what motivates the Supreme Court.
When exercising judicial review, the Court seeks to vindicate its constitutional vision by striking
down legislation repugnant to that vision. This is true whether one believes that the Court seeks in good faith to divine the
true meaning of the Constitution and impose it on the elected branches, attempts to interpret the Constitution faithfully but subconsciously
imports its own policy views, or disingenuously strives to implement its policy preferences in the guise of neutral interpretation. For the
purposes of the present argument it is irrelevant which view or combination of views is most accurate, and the phrase constitutional vision
will stand for any and all of these. Yet as suggested above, the
Court is not unconstrained when it seeks to effect its
constitutional vision through judicial review: if it strays too far from the political mainstream,55
it will face consequences that undermine its con-stitutional vision even more than would the
upholding of a disfavored statute.56 The upshot is that the Court operates under conditions of scarcity
and must economize on its political capital to go as far in implementing its constitutional vision
as political realities allow , which sometimes means upholding (or declining to review)
government actions that contravene that vision.57 And, as a distinct matter, most Justices have displayed
a desire to conserve the Courts political capital and maintain its institutional prestige as
much as possible even where the Court was not immediately threatened with any hard
political constraints.58 This conservatism is especially understandable given that the Justices are generally not political experts and
lack the sophisticated public relations apparatuses of the elected branches, and that the elected branches have substantial capacity to shift
public opinion about the Court if they so choose; these
factors make it rational for the Court to be parsimonious
with its political capital in order to avoid blind overreaching .
Kennedy considers the effect of individual decisions on capital.
Perry 2 Barbara A. Perry, Carter Glass Professor of Government at Sweet Briar College in
Virginia, author of The Priestly Tribe: The Supreme Courts Image in the American Mind and The
Supremes: Essays on the Current Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, former
Judicial Fellow at the U.S. Supreme Court, where she received the Tom C. Clark Award as the
outstanding fellow that year, included researching and drafting speeches for Chief Justice
William H. Rehnquist, holds a Ph.D. in government from the University of Virginia, an M.A. in
politics, philosophy, and economics from Hertford College, Oxford, and a B.A. in political
science from the University of Louisville, 2002 (The Cult of the Robe, Social Education,
Volume 66, Issue 1, pp.30-33, Available Online at
http://www.socialstudies.org/sites/default/files/publications/se/6601/660107.html, Accessed
09-04-2017)
Kennedy, who at this point had already testified for an hour before the subcommittee on the smallest details of the Supreme Court
buildings upcoming renovationall without notesbegan a dramatic soliloquy.6 He noted that the justices knew, even as
they decided the presidential election case, that their opinion would provoke strong feelings
among the American people. (They could not have thought otherwise when protesters for each side in the presidential race
staged loud demonstrations at the courts very doorstep.) Launching an institutional defense of the tribunal he represented, Kennedy
attempted to distinguish the court from the other two branches by virtue of its language, ethic,
discipline, dynamic, grammar, and logic of the law. Thus, he contended, the Supreme Court would be judged on Bush v. Gore not
by what the justices say after the fact, but by what we put in the appellate reports.

Kennedy also revealed the courts consideration of its institutional capital, observing,

Ultimately, the power and the prestige and the respect of the Court depend on trust .
My colleagues and I want to be the most trusted people in America. How do you instill that trust? Over time

you build up a deposit, a reservoir, a storehouse of trust. And when we make a

difficult decision . . . you draw down on that capital of trust.

Kennedy then admitted, You must make sure that you are listening to the right voice, not the
wrong voice. Ive been a judge for [more than] twenty-five years, and I know how hard it is to
search for that voice and make sure youre doing whats neutral.

Gerrymandering kills democracy---turns case.

Klaas 17 Brian Klaas, Washington Post, 2017 (Gerrymandering is the biggest obstacle to
genuine democracy in the United States. So why is no one protesting?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2017/02/10/gerrymandering-is-
the-biggest-obstacle-to-genuine-democracy-in-the-united-states-so-why-is-no-one-
protesting/?utm_term=.6fd9378f36a8)
There is an enormous paradox at the heart of American democracy. Congress is deeply and
stubbornly unpopular. On average, between 10 and 15 percent of Americans approve of Congress on a par with public support for
traffic jams and cockroaches. And yet, in the 2016 election, only eight incumbents eight out of a body of 435 representatives

were defeated at the polls. If there is one silver bullet that could fix American democracy , its
getting rid of gerrymandering the now commonplace practice of drawing electoral districts in a distorted way for partisan
gain. Its also one of a dwindling number of issues that principled citizens Democrat and Republican should be able to agree on. Indeed,
polls confirm that an overwhelming majority of Americans of all stripes oppose gerrymandering. In the 2016 elections for the House of
Representatives, the average
electoral margin of victory was 37.1 percent. Thats a figure youd expect
from North Korea, Russia or Zimbabwe not the United States. But the shocking reality is that the typical race
ended with a Democrat or a Republican winning nearly 70 percent of the vote, while their challenger
won just 30 percent. Last year, only 17 seats out of 435 races were decided by a margin of 5 percent or less. Just 33 seats in total were decided
by a margin of 10 percent or less. In other words, more than 9 out of 10 House races were landslides where the campaign was a foregone
conclusion before ballots were even cast. In 2016, there were no truly competitive Congressional races in 42 of the 50 states. That is not
healthy for a system of government that, at its core, is defined by political competition.
Gerrymandering, in a word, is why American democracy is broken. The word gerrymander comes from
an 1812 political cartoon drawn to parody Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerrys re-drawn senate districts. The cartoon depicts one of the
bizarrely shaped districts in the contorted form of a fork-tongued salamander. Since 1812, gerrymandering has been increasingly used as a tool
to divide and distort the electorate. More often than not, state legislatures are tasked with drawing district maps, allowing the electoral foxes
to draw and defend their henhouse districts. While no party is innocent when it comes to gerrymandering, a Washington Post analysis in 2014
found that eight of the ten most gerrymandered districts in the United States were drawn by Republicans. As a result, districts from the Illinois
4th to the North Carolina 12th often look like spilled inkblots rather than coherent voting blocs. They are anything but accidental. The Illinois
4th, for example, is nicknamed the Latin Earmuffs, because it connects two predominantly Latino areas by a thin line that is effectively just
one road. In so doing, it packs Democrats into a contorted district, ensuring that those voters cast ballots in a safely Democratic preserve. The
net result is a weakening of the power of Latino votes and more Republican districts than the electoral math should reasonably yield. Because
Democrats are packed together as tightly as possible in one district, Republicans have a chance to win surrounding districts even though they
are vastly outnumbered geographically. These uncompetitive districts have a seriously corrosive effect on the
integrity of democracy . If youre elected to represent a district that is 80 percent Republican or
80 percent Democratic, there is absolutely no incentive to compromise. Ever . In fact, there is a strong

disincentive to collaboration, because working across the aisle almost certainly means the risk
of a primary challenge from the far right or far left of the party. For the overwhelming majority
of Congressional representatives, there is no real risk to losing a general election but there is a
very real threat of losing a fiercely contested primary election. Over time, this causes sane people
to pursue insane pandering and extreme positions . It is a key, but often overlooked, source of
contemporary gridlock and endless bickering. Moreover, gerrymandering also disempowers and
distorts citizen votes which leads to decreased turnout and a sense of powerlessness. In 2010, droves of tea party activists eager to
have their voices heard quickly realized that their own representative was either a solidly liberal Democrat in an overwhelmingly blue district or
a solidly conservative Republican in an overwhelmingly red district. Those representatives would not listen because the electoral map meant
that they didnt need to. Those
who now oppose President Trump are quickly learning the same lesson
about the electoral calculations made by their representatives as they make calls or write letters to congressional
representatives who seem about as likely to be swayed as granite. This helps to explain why 2014 turnout sagged to just 36.4 percent, the
lowest turnout rate since World War II. Why bother showing up when the result already seems preordained? There are two pieces
of good news. First, several court rulings in state and federal courts have dealt a blow to gerrymandered districts. Several
court rulings objected to districts that clearly were drawn along racial lines. Perhaps the most important is a Wisconsin

case (Whitford v. Gill) that ruled that districts could not be drawn for deliberate partisan gain. The Supreme Court will rule on
partisan gerrymandering in 2017, and its a case that could transform and reinvigorate
American democracy at a time when a positive shock is sorely needed . (This may hold true even if
Neil Gorsuch is confirmed to the Supreme Court, as Justices Kennedy and Roberts could side with the

liberal minority). Second, fixing gerrymandering is getting easier. Given the right parameters, computer models can fairly apportion
citizens into districts that are diverse, competitive and geographically sensible ensuring that minorities are not used as pawns in a national
political game. These efforts can be bolstered by stripping district drawing powers from partisan legislators and putting them into the hands of
citizen-led commissions that are comprised by an equal number of Democrat- and Republican-leaning voters. Partisan politics is to be exercised
within the districts, not during their formation. But gerrymandering intensifies every decade regardless, because its not a politically sexy
issue. Whens the last time you saw a march against skewed districting? Even if the marches do come someday, the last stubborn barrier to
getting reform right is human nature. Many people prefer to be surrounded by like-minded citizens, rather than feeling like a lonely red oasis in
a sea of blue or vice versa. Rooting out gerrymandering wont make San Francisco or rural Texas districts more competitive no matter the
computer model used. And, as the urban/rural divide in American politics intensifies, competitive districts will be harder and harder to draw.
The more we cluster, the less we find common ground and compromise. Ultimately, though, we must remember that what
truly
differentiates democracy from despotism is political competition. The longer we allow our
districts to be hijacked by partisans, blue or red, the further we gravitate away from the founding
ideals of our republic and the closer we inch toward the death of American democracy.

Democracy checks global conflicts.

Kasparov 17 Garry Kasparov, Chairman of the Human Rights Foundation, 2017 (Democracy
and Human Rights: The Case for U.S. Leadership
http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/021617_Kasparov_%20Testimony.pdf)
The Soviet Union was an existential threat, and this focused the attention of the world, and the American people. There
existential
threat today is not found on a map, but it is very real. The forces of the past are making steady
progress against the modern world order . Terrorist movements in the Middle East, extremist
parties across Europe, a paranoid tyrant in North Korea threatening nuclear blackmail , and, at
the center of the web, an aggressive KGB dictator in Russia. They all want to turn the world back to a dark past

because their survival is threatened by the values of the free world, epitomized by the United
States. And they are thriving as the U.S. has retreated. The global freedom index has declined for ten consecutive
years. No one like to talk about the United States as a global policeman, but this is what happens when there is no cop on the beat.
American leadership begins at home , right here. America cannot lead the world on democracy and
human rights if there is no unity on the meaning and importance of these things . Leadership is

required to make that case clearly and powerfully. Right now, Americans are engaged in politics at a level
not seen in decades. It is an opportunity for them to rediscover that making America great begins with
believing America can be great. The Cold War was won on American values that were shared by
both parties and nearly every American. Institutions that were created by a Democrat, Truman,
were triumphant forty years later thanks to the courage of a Republican, Reagan. This bipartisan consistency
created the decades of strategic stability that is the great strength of democracies . Strong
institutions that outlast politicians allow for long-range planning . In contrast, dictators can operate
only tactically, not strategically, because they are not constrained by the balance of powers ,
but cannot afford to think beyond their own survival . This is why a dictator like Putin has an
advantage in chaos, the ability to move quickly. This can only be met by strategy, by long-term goals that are based on shared values,
not on polls and cable news. The fear of making things worse has paralyzed the United States from trying to make things better. There will
always be setbacks, but the United States cannot quit.
The spread of democracy is the only proven remedy for
nearly every crisis that plagues the world today. War, famine, poverty, terrorism all are
generated and exacerbated by authoritarian regimes . A policy of America First inevitably puts American security
last. American leadership is required because there is no one else , and because it is good for America. There

is no weapon or wall that is more powerful for security than America being envied, imitated,
and admired around the world . Admired not for being perfect, but for having the exceptional
courage to always try to be better.
 1NC
Education regulations excludes the court---they are executive actions based upon
Congressional grants of rulemaking authority.
Bon 8 Susan C. Bon, Professor of Education, Higher Education Program Coordinator, and
Affiliate Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina, former Ombudsman in the State
Superintendents Division of the Ohio Department of Education, holds a Ph.D. in Education
Policy and Leadership and a J.D. from The Ohio State University, 2008 (Regulation,
Encyclopedia of Education Law (Volume 2), Edited by Charles J. Russo, Published by SAGE
Publications, Inc., ISBN 1412940796, p. 669-670)
Regulation
Although education is primarily an issue reserved for state and local control, federal involvement in the
form of funding, legislative enactments, and subsequent regulations has dramatically
increased. Thus, numerous regulations have emerged from federal departments and agencies
such as the U.S. Department of Education and the Office for Civil Rights. These regulations provide guidance to
state and local educational agencies regarding educators responsibilities and students rights.
For example, the rights of students with disabilities are protected under the Individuals with Disabilities in
Education Act (IDEA) and are further explained in the IDEA regulations, which are issued by the
Department of Education. Likewise, the educational rights of English language learners (ELLs) are protected by Title
VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and are enforced through regulations issued by the Office for Civil
Rights. The legal background of regulations and how they are created are discussed in this entry.
Legal Context

Governmental powers are vested by the U.S. Constitution in three separate branches: the executive, legislative,
and judicial. Following a strict concept of separation of powers, each of these three governmental branches has the power and
responsibility to act according to constitutional guidelines. The legislative branch has the primary power to make
laws and to provide for the necessary policies and procedures to enact the laws. Regulations typically
emerge as a direct result of this exercise of lawmaking power by the legislative branch .

Federal or state legislatures may delegate rulemaking authority and regulatory powers to specific agencies or
departments in the executive branch of government. These governmental agencies or departments may then fulfill these
delegated powers and responsibilities by issuing, or promulgating, regulations. During the 1930s, a surge of New Deal
legislation emerged from Congress that began to delegate greater authority for issuing detailed regulations to various federal departments and
agencies.

Regulations are issued by governmental agencies in order to accomplish the specific purposes of federal, state, or local statutes. In other words,
governmental agencies are granted the authority and responsibility to promulgate reasonable rules and regulations in furtherance of the
delegated legislative powers. While governmental agencies may be granted specific authority to carry out the terms of a given law, this
authority is subject to various limitations upon such regulatory functions.

These limitations include, for example, a limit upon the regulatory authority of governmental agencies based upon constitutional rules and legal
standards. Another limitation upon the regulatory authority is the mandate requiring that regulations conform to or not exceed the delegated
powers inherent in the originating statute. Finally, governmental agencies are expected to adopt regulations in order to provide a mechanism
for understanding, interpreting, enforcing, and overseeing the legislative purpose of a given statute or law.

How Regulations Are Made

Regulations typically emerge following consultation with the various individuals, industries, and institutions that will be affected by the
regulations. In fulfillment of these expectations, governmental agencies publish a proposed regulation and then offer a period of time during
which interested and affected parties are given an opportunity to comment on the proposed regulation. Federal agencies must adhere to the
Administrative Procedure Act, which mandates the publication of proposed and final regulations or rules in the Federal Register following the
provision of notice and the opportunity for interested persons to share their views via written or oral presentation.

At the federal level, the proposed regulation appears in the Federal Register, which is published 5 days a week, while at the state level, the
commentary process varies widely and may depend heavily upon which state agency is proposing the regulation. During and following the
public commentary period, a proposed regulation may be altered significantly. The final regulation, however, is expected to provide practical
guidance to affected individuals and to the public agency responsible for implementing the originating statute. Final
regulations
issued by federal agencies are published in the Code of Federal Regulations and are arranged by
subject. Regulations affecting education can be found primarily in Title 34 (Education) of the Code of
Federal Regulations .

Even though the definition of regulation is typically broad , this term does not encompass all
agency pronouncements . First, courts have determined that federal regulations have the full
force and effect of law only when they have been adopted by governmental agencies for the
purpose enforcing acts of Congress . Second, courts have repeatedly held that regulations must be filed and published in
order to be effective as a matter of law. In theory, however, regulations do not have the effect of law because they are not the work of
legislatures. Yet given the practice of judicial review of administrative action, regulations are typically a significant factor influencing the
outcome of cases in which regulatory activity is involved.

Violation---the AFF is not an agency action under Title 34 of the CFR---Vote NEG---Court AFFs
add a separate legal topic. This requires mastery of an entirely separate lit base,
overstretching NEG prep and undermining clash. It also kills topic education by inviting legal
doctrine and spillover advantages. The courts CP should be core NEG ground.
 1NC
The United States federal government should confirm that all persons in the United States
are guaranteed elementary and secondary public education by the Thirteenth Amendment.

Their unauthorized migrant rhetoric dehumanizes migrants they reduce people to one
action and deny their legality
Golash-Boza 13 Professor of Sociology at the University of California, (Tanya Golash-Boza,
No human being is illegal: It's time to drop the 'i-word', Aljazeera, 4/8/13,
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/04/201347111531424247.html)
People who live in the US without permission from the US government are commonly referred
to as illegals, illegal immigrants, illegal aliens, undocumented immigrants, or unauthorised migrants. The
term you select to describe them has consequences. The first term "illegal" is grammatically
incorrect - as it uses an adjective (illegal) as a noun. A person could have entered the country illegally, but that
does not mean it is appropriate to call them an "illegal". The US government prefers to use the terms "illegal alien" and
"illegal immigrant". However, the fact that the government had adopted a moniker does not mean that the

word is accurate or unproblematic. The US government also uses terms such as "criminal alien" and "fugitive alien", which are
dehumanising and politically motivated. To universally refer to people who live in the country
without authorisation as "illegal immigrants" is incorrect. As David Leopold points out, people who are victims of human
trafficking and in the US without authorisation merit protection, not prosecution. The terms "illegal immigrant" and "illegal alien"

are problematic because they focus all of our attention on one aspect of a person - the fact that
they do not have permission to remain in the country. This is problematic because having
crossed the border without permission does not render a person necessarily an "illegal
immigrant".You can cross the border without permission, and later obtain legalisation and even
citizenship. Just as going over the speed limit once does not make you an "illegal driver", nor does crossing the border once make you an "illegal immigrant"
or an "illegal alien". Furthermore, as Professor Otto Santa Ana of the University of California, Los Angeles, explains, the use of the adjective

illegal implies criminality, and overstaying your visa or evading immigration inspectors is a civil
offence.

Dehumanization is the worst impact, it brings the society to total damnation: a loss of all
value to life, justifies all genocides and atrocities.
Fasching, Professor of Religious Studies in the University of South Florida 1993 [Darrell J., Part II
of The ethical challenge of Auschwitz and Hiroshima: Apocalypse or Utopia?, Chapter 4 "The
Ethical Challenge of Auschwitz and Hiroshima to Technological Utopianism", part 4 "The
Challenge of Auschwitz and Hiroshima: From Sacred Morality to Alienation and Ethics", Ebooks]

Although every culture is inherently utopian in its potentiality, the internal social dynamic through which its symbolic world-view is maintained as a sacred order has
a tendency to transform it into a closed ideological universe (in Karl Mannheim's sense of the ideological; namely, a world-view that promises change while actually

reinforcing the status quo) that tends to define human identity in terms advantageous to some and at the expense of others. Historically the
process of dehumanization has typically begun by redefining the other as, by nature, less than
human. So the Nazis did to the Jews, and European Americans did to the Native Americans, men
have done to women, and whites to blacks. By relegating these social definitions to the realm of nature they are removed from the realm of choice and ethical

Hence those in the superior categories need feel no responsibility toward those in the
reflection.

inferior categories. It is simply a matter of recognizing reality. Those who are the objects of such definitions find themselves robbed of their humanity.
They are defined by and confined to the present horizon of culture and their place in it, which seeks to rob them of their utopian capacity for theonomous self-

transcending self-definition. The cosmicization of social identities is inevitably legitimated by sacred

narratives, whether religious or secular-scientific (e.g., the Nazi biological myth of Aryan racial superiority), which dehumanize not only
the victims but also the victors. For to create such a demonic social order the victors must deny not only the humanity of the other who is
treated as totally alien but also their own humanity as well. That is, to imprison the alien in his or her enforced subhuman

identity (an identity that attempts to deny the victim the possibility of self-transcendence) the victor must imprison himself or
herself in this same world as it has been defined and deny his or her own self-transcendence as
well. The bureaucratic process that appears historically with the advent of urbanization increases the demonic potential of this process, especially the modern
state bureaucracy organized around the use of the most efficient techniques to control every area of human activity. The result is, as Rubenstein reminds us, the

society of total domination in which virtually nothing is sacred, not even human life . The heart of such a
bureaucratic social order is the sacralization of professional roles within the bureaucratic structure such that technical experts completely identify themselves with
their roles as experts in the use of techniques while totally surrendering the question of what those technical skills will be used for to the expertise of those above

them in the bureaucratic hierarchy. It is no accident that the two cultures that drew the world into the
cataclysm of World War II, Germany and Japan, were militaristic cultures, cultures that prized and valued the
militaristic ideal of the unquestioningly obedient warrior. In these nations, the state and bureaucratic order became one and

the same. As Lewis Mumford has argued, the army as an invention of urban civilization is a near-
perfect social embodiment of the ideal of the machine. 37 The army brings mechanical order to near perfection in its
bureaucratic structure, where human beings are stripped of their freedom to choose and question and

where each individual soldier becomes an automaton carrying out orders always "from higher
up" with unquestioning obedience.
 Economy Advantage---1NC
Plenary power over immigration is critical to executive foreign policy flexibility
FEERE 2009 Jon Feere is a legal policy analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies, Plenary
Power: Should Judges Control U.S. Immigration Policy? February, Center for Immigration
Studies Backgrounder, http://www.cis.org/plenarypower)
Foreign Powers Controlling U.S. Immigration Policy? One of the arguments for the political branches plenary
power over immigration involves a focus on foreign affairs. That issue was a factor in the Zadvydas decision. Under
the Constitution, it is the executive and legislative branches that direct foreign policy matters. This
ensures that the U.S. relations with other countries are consistent and reliable . As explained by the
dissenting justices in Zadvydas: judicial orders requiring release of removable aliens, even on a temporary
basis, have the potential to undermine the obvious necessity that the Nation speak with one
voice on immigration and foreign affairs matters.90 The problem is that the majority effectively
empowered foreign governments to control U.S. immigration policy. The dissenting justices in Zadvydas
explained: The result of the Courts rule is that, by refusing to accept repatriation of their own nationals, other
countries can effect the release of these individuals back into the American community. If their
own nationals are now at large in the United States, the nation of origin may ignore or disclaim
responsibility to accept their return. The interference with sensitive foreign relations becomes
even more acute where hostility or tension characterizes the relationship, for other countries
can use the fact of judicially mandated release to their strategic advantage, refusing the return
of their nationals to force dangerous aliens upon us.91 Certainly, such political considerations are not on the average
judges radar, and they shouldnt be. Political issues are to be debated and resolved within the political
branches. But the decision in Zadvydas arguably requires judges to involve the judiciary in foreign affairs. According to the dissenting
justices: One of the more alarming aspects of the Courts new venture into foreign affairs
management is the suggestion that the district court can expand or contract the reasonable
period of detention based on its own assessment of the course of negotiations with foreign
powers. The Court says it will allow the Executive to perform its duties on its own for six
months; after that, foreign relations go into judicially supervised receivership .92 By not adhering
to the plenary power doctrine, the Zadvydas majority effectively relocates foreign policy
considerations from experienced and accountable political actors to arguably less-politically
astute judges while simultaneously politicizing the judiciary. The decision also puts foreign
governments in the drivers seat.

Plenary power is key to the Commerce clause which is the basis of environmental regulation
narrowing it results in overturn
Parker 05 (Vawter "Buck," Executive Director at Earthjustice, graduate of Harvard Law School, 8/15,
http://www.earthjustice.org/our_work/buck_in_brief/the_commerce_clause_and_the_environment.html)
Among the powers granted to Congress by
The Constitution grants only certain powers to the federal government; all other power is reserved to the states alone.

is the authority to "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with
Article I
the Indian Tribes." That authority is the basis of most federal statutes enacted by Congress beginning in the 1970's to
protect public health and the environment, including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. It is also the basis of many other important federal
 Congress stepped in to pass those laws only after decades of failure by individual
statutes as well, including civil rights laws.

states to deal with the underlying problems. In the environmental realm, individual states were simply unwilling to confront
powerful national industries in order to protect the environment for fear of losing jobs to other parts of the
country. Until now, courts have generally upheld those federal laws as valid exercises of Congressional power
under the Commerce Clause in Article I; as recently as June of this year, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to federal laws
prohibiting the private cultivation of marijuana for medical purposes as beyond the scope of the Commerce
Clause in Gonzales v. Raich. The Bush Administration hopes that is about to change, thanks to a new breed of federal judge. If federal courts can re-interpret
the Commerce Clause to restrict the ability of Congress to regulate, then many long-standing environmental or
public health statutes might be overturned as unconstitutional. Even worse is the prospect that if the Supreme Court were to endorse that view

as a constitutional requirement, there would be no remedy other than to amend the Constitution. A variety of industry
attacks on federal environmental laws aimed at achieving exactly that result are working their way through the federal court system and could reach the Supreme Court in the next few years.

Extinction.
BROWN 97 (Jacqueline Lesley Brown, Assistant Attorney General, Ohio Attorney General's Office, Transportation Section, 12 J. Envtl. L. & Litig. 151, 1997, Lexis)
Our lack of knowledge regarding the number of existing species makes current extinction rates extremely
difficult to quantify. Nonetheless, scientists argue that the current extinction rate is the highest in sixty-five million years. n7
The
geological record, which contains information about species extinction, shows that species have always evolved in and out of existence. This record enables paleontologists to understand how the
the number of species currently evolving in and out of
current extinction rate fits within the larger context of global evolution. Overall, it indicates that

existence is unnatural. n8
In fact, it indicates that the present level of species extinction is cataclysmic . n9 Predictions of the current
extinction rate are not based on direct observation of extinction. Extinction data is based on a scientific principle called the "species-area curve." n10 In mathematical terms, this principle describes
the relationship between the size of an area and the number of species it can support. It indicates how many species will be lost from an area [*154] when it is infringed upon by human activity.
n11
Biogeographers successfully tested the species-area curve equation on mangrove islands in the Florida Everglades. n12 Other scientists extrapolated the results of this experiment to other
islands surrounded by water, to lakes in a "sea of land," to alpine meadows or mountaintops surrounded by evergreen forests, and to tree clusters amidst grasslands. n13 In fact, this principle is the
basis for scientific estimates of the current extinction spasm. Many scientists argue that the Earth's enormous species loss could trigger the loss of
n14

increasingly more species until ecosystems no longer can function to support life. As habitats shrink, certain species
that depend on the larger habitats or their elements may dwindle. Then, other species, whose lives depend on the
newly dwindling species for survival, also begin to suffer. This downward spiral may eventually be irreversible.
n15 n16

The Earth is experiencing its worst extinction period in 65 million years. Humans are triggering a downward spiral of extinction that could

eventually swallow them.

Trumps already engaging in diversionary wars.

Bruno 8/25 (Alessandro holds a BA and MA in International Relations all at the University of
Toronto. Alessandro has been published extensively and is a frequent guest on television news
programs including the BBC, CBC, and CTV. Alessandro has worked as an industry analyst, lived
and worked abroad extensively, and served as a United Nations officer in North Africa.
Alessandro was also an analyst in the global investment banking sector for a leading
international advisory group, August 25th, 2017, Is Trump to Blame for the Coming Financial
Collapse of 2018?, https://www.lombardiletter.com/trump-blame-financial-collapse-
2018/15645/, nassal)
Trump Could Become Hillary to Save the Economy Moreover, if debt alone were the problem, there could be a way out. Had President
Trump been able to carry out his agenda of economic growth, pushing infrastructure
investments and reducing the burden of income taxesespecially on the lower and middle
classesthe markets would not have remained such a focus of economic performance. Rather,
the potential market crash that is fast approaching will hit a weak economy backed by even
weaker politics. The media and complicit members of Congress have crippled [hurt] Trumps presidency. The only hope for the
economy now is more war. Note that the only time when senators, congressmen, and media pundits
gave Trump a break was when he ordered a Tomahawk missile attack against a Syrian air base
in April. The attack was a grandstanding attempt to punish the Syrian government over its alleged use
of chemical weapons in an aerial attack targeting rebel groups near Idlib. The debate over the responsibility for that
attack and the nature of the chemical agent use continues. But, what is important to realize to
understand the Presidents course of action to sustain the economy is this. Rather than back
away from conflicts and foreign military adventures, as he promised on the campaign trail, Trump will
engage in more of them. In other words, Trump will become Hillary. From Russia, to Syria, North Korea, and
of course Afghanistan, Trump is spoiled for choice over how to distract Americans from
worrying about the economy, stocks, and the markets. The United States has military forces
present in two thirds of the countries represented at the United Nations. Many in Congress and
the media are working overtime to portray Russia as the aggressor. But, its really the U.S.
military bases near Russia rather than the other way around. Perhaps youve been noticing the strange way
theyve been presenting reality. They, by the way, are those who really control things. Its not even the President. Hes almost as much a
hostage as you and I are. No, its the deep state. The media works for this entity and it helps to prop it up. Following President Trumps
missile strike in Syria, Fareed Zakaria at CNN said, I think Donald Trump became president of the United States last night. (Source: CNN host:
Donald Trump became president last night, The Hill, April 7, 2017.) Trump
is a bit of a narcissist. He wants to win
approval, and military action has already shown him that it is within his reach. There is much
chaos at Washington right now. Trump is being portrayed as an unpredictable president and
the deep state apparatus wants to break his presidency down. Thus, left to their own devices and with interest
rate hikes comingif not now, certainly by Decemberthe next financial collapse is not far off. As Ron Paul noted, if the
markets crash tomorrow, causing another Great Depression, Trump is not to blame. Hes only been there six months. The problems we are
facing are the result of everything that has been done in the past 10 years. That said, Wall Street is overestimating the strength of the economy
and the Federal Reserve has maintained interest rates at too low levels and for too long.

Constraints solve Trump lash-out.

Goldsmith 17 Jack, Henry L. Shattuck Professor at Harvard Law School, a Senior Fellow at the
Hoover Institution, and co-founder of Lawfare. He teaches and writes about national security
law, presidential power, cyber security, international law, internet law, foreign relations law,
and conflict of laws. He served as Assistant Attorney General at the Office of Legal Counsel from
2003-2004, and Special Counsel to the Department of Defense from 2002-2003. Checks on
Presidential Power Are Stronger Than You Think 1-20-17
https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/north-america/checks-presidential-power-are-
stronger-you-think-1091
TCB: Which are the most resilient currently existing checks on his power, and which need to be
bolstered?
JG: There are many, both inside and outside the Executive branch. On the inside, a bevy of
lawyers, ethics monitors, inspectors general, and bureaucrats in the intelligence and defense
communities have expertise, interests and values, and infighting skills that enable them to
check and narrow the options for even the most aggressive presidents. On the outside, the
press, which did such an extraordinary job of holding Bush, and to a lesser extent Obama, to
account, is more motivated than ever to hold Trump accountable. The same goes for civil
society groups like the ACLU, which have used lawsuits, reports, and Freedom of Information
Act requests to expose government operations and misdeeds since 9/11, and whose coffers
have ballooned since Trumps election. Spurred on by the press and civil society, the judiciary,
which often stood up to Bush, will stand up even more to Trump if he engages in excessive
behavior. Finally, Congress has been more consequential in constraining the national security
president since 9/11 than people realize. And as we have already seen in some pushback from
Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Rand Paul (R-KY), it will stand up to
Trump on many issues, even though his party nominally controls Congress.
None of these institutions are perfect. They are especially ill-suited to prevent the President
from using military force as he sees fit, which is why the Obama Administrations precedents in
this context are so troubling. But the institutions do a much better job in other national security
contexts than they have been given credit for, and they will be watching president Trump with
a very skeptical eye and an array of powers to push back.
 Terror Advantage---1NC
Multilateral coop will always structurally fail regardless of their internal link
Barma et al., 13 (Naazneen, assistant professor of national-security affairs at the Naval
Postgraduate School; Ely Ratner, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security; and
Steven Weber, professor of political science and at the School of Information at the University
of California, Berkeley, March/April 2013, The Mythical Liberal Order, The National Interest,
http://nationalinterest.org/print/article/the-mythical-liberal-order-8146)

the current system is falling progressively further behind on the

Assessed against its ability to solve global problems,

most important challenges, including financial stability, the responsibility to protect, and coordinated action on climate change, nuclear
proliferation, cyberwarfare and maritime security. The authority, legitimacy and capacity of
multilateral institutions dissolve when the going gets tough when member countries have
meaningfully different interests (as in currency manipulations), when the distribution of costs is large enough to
matter (as in humanitarian crises in sub-Saharan Africa) or when the shadow of future uncertainties looms large (as in carbon reduction).
Like a sports team that perfects exquisite plays during practice but fails to execute against an actual
opponent, global-governance institutions have sputtered precisely when their supposed skills
and multilateral capital are needed most . WHY HAS this happened? The hopeful liberal notion that these failures of
global governance are merely reflections of organizational dysfunction that can be fixed by reforming or reengineering the institutions themselves, as if this were a job for

management consultants fiddling with organization charts, is a costly distraction from the real challenge. A decade-long effort to revive the dead-
on-arrival Doha Development Round in international trade is the sharpest example of the cost of such a tinkering-around-the-edges approach and its ultimate futility. Equally distracting and
wrong is the notion held by neoconservatives and others that global governance is inherently a bad idea and that its institutions are ineffective and undesirable simply by virtue of being

The root cause of stalled global governance is simpler and more straightforward. Multipolarization has
supranational.

come faster and more forcefully than expected. Relatively authoritarian and postcolonial emerging
powers have become leading voices that undermine anything approaching international consensus and, with that,
multilateral institutions. Its not just the reasonable demand for more seats at the table. That might have caused something of a decline in effectiveness but also an increase in legitimacy that

on balance could have rendered it a net positive. Instead, global governance has gotten the worst of both worlds: a decline in both effectiveness and legitimacy. The problem is
not one of a few rogue states acting badly in an otherwise coherent system. There has been no real breakdown per se. There just wasnt all that much liberal
world order to break down in the first place. The new voices are more than just numerous and powerful . They are

truly distinct from the voices of an old era, and they approach the global system in a meaningfully different
way .

1AC internal links are about the travel ban.

1AC Jaipragas 17 (Bhavan Jaipragas, Asia Correspondent @ SCMP, "Trumps executive
disorder: Muslim ban undermines the US in Asia", South China Morning Post, 2-5-2017,
Available Online at http://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2067913/trumps-
executive-disorder-how-muslim-ban-undermines-us-asia, accessed 8-17-2017)

President Donald Trumps sweeping executive order that seals off the borders of the United
States to citizens of seven Muslim majority countries may well be lifted in three months, but the damage it
inflicts on Americas already tarnished image in the Islamic world is likely to endure far
longer. The newly minted White House administration remains defiant over the immigration curbs introduced on January 27 defended
as necessary to prevent the import of terrorism even as fury over what has been dubbed a Muslim ban mounts at home and abroad. The
order blocks travellers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the US for three months, while also suspending
the intake of refugees for four months. American foreign policy and political Islam watchers say the
move in one stroke
unravels the small but vital gains made by Trumps predecessor Barack Obama in rebuilding
American clout with the worlds 1.6 billion Muslims, the bulk of whom hail from Asia. Despite
lingering discontent in Muslim majority countries over some aspects of Obamas foreign policy, the former US leader is seen to have

made inroads in re-establishing Americas standing in these societies . The image of the
worlds sole superpower was marred across the Muslim world in the decade preceding
Obamas eight years in power by President George W. Bushs unpopular invasion of Iraq in 2003
that was widely seen as illegal. Experts say Trumps travel ban emboldens rather than weakens
extremist groups like Islamic State and al-Qaeda , as it adds fuel to their radical narratives
which paint the US as hell-bent on spearheading a violent reckoning between the Judeo-
Christian Western world and Islam. The good work of President Obama in building bridges with Muslim countries is in
tatters. America is still feared but she is no longer held in high esteem , said Zaid Ibrahim, a Malaysian former
cabinet minister who has led efforts to promote a moderate strand of Islam in the Southeast Asian country. Peter Mandaville, a former adviser
on political Islam at the US State Department, said the order could not help but harm perceptions of
Americas standing in the world . And Zachary Abuza, a Southeast Asia expert at the National War College in Washington,
said the policy simply makes it harder for governments in Southeast Asia to be willing to
cooperate with the US. The Trump administrations abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, America First policy, and
frankly very erratic national security stance, should call into question Americas commitment to regional security, Abuza said. AMERICAN
DREAM FADES Apart from the damage to diplomatic ties, the
curbs are seen as likely to hurt US soft power in many
parts of the Muslim world . In developing Muslim countries like Pakistan, Iran and Indonesia, it is routine for
politicians to invoke the US as an imperialist bogeyman to shore up domestic support. But for many
of the ordinary citizens in these societies, the US has remained a beacon that best represents the ideals of Western democracy and openness.
That cultural capital, however, could also be under threat as a result of the latest curb, the experts say. I
think that many residents of the Muslim world like America and its people even if they dont like
US policies, said Michael Kugelman, the Asia programme deputy director at the Wilson Centre think tank in Washington. What I fear,
however, is that Trump has gone so far in this case that many will be so disgusted with his policies
that their general impressions of America will be tarnished, he said. Zaid, the Malaysian former politician, said
Trumps orders could take the sheen off Western-style governance and strengthen the hand
of hardline Islamists . Autocratic Muslim leaders will emulate Trump and using strident Islamic
rhetoric and laws, they will strengthen their position, said Zaid, now a prominent critic of Malaysian Prime Minister
Najib Razak. In this condition its almost certain that liberal democracy will disappear and the jihadists will

take over . Malaysia is one such example where Islamic autocracy will impose their power in the near
future, he added. Trump, who has initiated sweeping policy changes through executive orders in his first fortnight in office, has slammed
the widespread condemnation of the immigration curbs. This is not a Muslim ban, as the media is falsely reporting, the US leader said last
Sunday. Trump first made public his plans for a temporary but total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States following
the December 2015 shooting in San Bernardino, California. It was perpetrated by a married couple who professed allegiance to Islamic State.
Trump at that time said his proposed curbs were necessary so our countrys representatives can figure out what is going on. He cited polling
data that he said showed great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population. Rudy Giuliani, the former public
prosecutor turned New York mayor who is a close Trump confidante, said this week that soon after the initial proposal for a ban the then
presidential candidate asked him for advice on the legal basis of enacting a Muslim ban. And Steve Bannon, the conservative rabble-rouser
who is now Trumps chief strategist, in a 2010 interview said he believed Islam was not a religion of peace, but instead was a religion of
submission. Good Muslims and bad Muslims These pronouncements suggest the ban was in fact targeted at Muslims,
experts said. I worry that in the world view of Trumps closest advisers , the Muslim world is indeed

divided into good Muslims and bad Muslims and that for them good Muslims are the
ones who support the policies of the US and dedicate themselves to defeating the bad
Muslims , said Mandaville, who was a senior adviser to the Obama-era foreign policy chiefs Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. Bernard
Haykel, a professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, said that particular world view was prevalent in the
US, even if Americans were reticent to acknowledge it. There is a confusion over the links between extremism
and Islam. On one hand Obama says there is no connection at all. The people around Trump
and Trump himself say there is a connection ... they wont admit it but [Trumps] view is quite
widespread, he said. The dichotomous framing plays into the ideological narratives
perpetuated by Islamic State and al-Qaeda . This Muslim ban plays into the narrative of
radical Salafist groups such as al-Qaeda and Islamic State, who try to create very clear
distinctions between the umma [Muslim community] and the kaffir [unbelievers], and between
Darul Islam [territory of Islam] and Darul al Harb [territory of war], said Abuza, who specialises in the study of
religious extremism in Southeast Asia. They strive to convince their followers and other Muslims that

there is no place for them in the West and that the West is actually fighting a war against
Islam .

NO I to Energy
Levi 12 (Michael A., Senior Fellow Council on Foreign Relations, The False Promise of Energy
Independence, New York Times, 12-21, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/21/opinion/the-
false-promise-of-energy-independence.html)
The International Energy Agency recently confirmed what market watchers have been saying for a year: oil and gas production in the
United States is
surging and is expected to continue to rise. This trend has led a parade of analysts and even the
governments National Intelligence Council to predict that, after four decades of failed attempts, America might soon become energy
independent. This view, if taken too far, is not only wrong, it is dangerous. The United States would remain
entangled with the global oil market indefinitely even if it were to import no oil. Political
leaders lulled into a false sense of security by rising domestic oil and gas output run the risk of making big
mistakes. There is no doubt that oil and gas production in the United States is growing strongly, bringing with it important economic and
security benefits. Indeed, it is entirely plausible that within 10 years or so, North America could produce as much oil as it consumes. (Canada
and Mexico are typically grouped with the United States in oil analyses because the three markets are tightly integrated.) The resulting freedom
from any need to import oil from overseas is what has led some analysts to herald a coming age of energy independence. But this misreads our
vulnerabilities. Since oil prices are set on world markets, we would not be immune from volatility
elsewhere unless the United States decided to wall itself off, an extreme measure that could inflict severe pain on the nations allies.
The United States economy is perpetually at risk because spikes in oil prices can quickly strip consumers of
cash at the gas pump. This sudden tax can knock the economy on its back, regardless of where we buy oil .
Newest evidence---travel ban literally does not exist.
Shear, Nixon and Liptak 9-25 Michael D. Shear, Ron Nixon, Adam Liptak, Journalists for the
NYT, 2017 (Supreme Court Cancels Hearings on Previous Trump Travel Ban, NYT, September
25th, Available Online at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/us/politics/trump-travel-ban-
supreme-court.html, Accessed 11-19-2017)

Washington The Supreme Court on Monday abruptly canceled oral arguments on President Trumps travel
ban, signaling the beginning of the end for a politically charged legal case that could have produced a blockbuster
ruling on the clash between presidential power and claims of religious discrimination.

A new, broader ban on travel prompted the unusual move by the justices, leaving Mr. Trump to face
scrutiny on a policy that in some ways goes even further indefinitely banning most travel to the United States from seven countries and
imposing restrictions on two others.

Immigration not key---UX overwhelms because travel ban perceptions loom and tons of other
Trump policies thump.

Soft power collapse inevitable & no impact---2008 recession, Iraq war, Trump---it also spurs
global governance.
Lehmann 16 Jean-Pierre is a Visiting Professor at Hong Kong University and at NIIT University
in Neemrana, Rajasthan (India). The Collapse Of US Soft Power - Global Impacts, 4/28/16,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jplehmann/2016/04/28/the-collapse-of-us-soft-power-global-
impacts/#1e26c47e34fa
Recent events and developments from the 2003 botched illegal invasion of Iraq to the 2016 presidential
election are doing significant harm not only to the planet in general, but also to the US image to its soft
power. Is US soft power collapsing?
Genesis of Soft Power

In the 1980s and early 1990s, a mood of American declinism set in among a number of thought leaders. In 1987, Paul Kennedy wrote The Rise
and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000, in which he suggested that the US would decline since,
like all empires of the past half-millennium, it had extended its geopolitical commitments beyond its economic capabilities. There was a general
diagnostic that the US was losing its position of global economic hegemon, and that it was being over-taken mainly by Japan, though some (eg
Lester Thurrow of MIT in Head to Head: The Coming Economic Battle Among Japan, Europe, and America, 1993) also saw Europe as contender
for the global economic leadership mantle. So the US was in the doldrums.

Then in 1990 Harvard professor, Joseph Nye, published Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power in which he coined the term
soft power. The distinction is the following: when a nation imposes its will through military, geopolitical or economic means, it is exercising
hard power; when a nation attracts others through social, cultural, political and economic means, it is exercising soft power. The US, Nye
argued, was evolving from a hard power to a soft power nation and its strength derived less from the capacity to impose than from its capacity
to attract. In soft power, the US was unrivalled. One of the USs key advantages has been the capacity of acting as the magnet of the global
brain and entrepreneurial drain. Silicon Valley is but one of many testaments.

Decline of Soft Power in the 21st Century

At the dawn of the 21st century, everything seemed to be going Americas way. The Japanese economic
threat was a distant memory; the Soviet empire had imploded; and with globalization, the whole world
seemed to be adopting American capitalism based on the so-called Washington Consensus. When
09/11 struck, there was a spontaneous global outpouring of sympathy and solidarity with the US as illustrated in the September 12 headline
of the French left-leaning newspaper Le Monde: nous sommes tous amricains (we are all Americans).

invasion of Iraq in 2003. It is not only that the invasion was illegal and has caused immense
Then the illegal
dislocations and suffering, but it was a mistake. In 1994, Vice-President Dick Cheney, then Secretary of Defense, gave a
remarkably lucid interview in which he argued persuasively why it would have been wrong, indeed a disaster, for the US to follow up on the
victories of the 1991 Operation Desert Storm with the invasion of Iraq. It would, he emphasized, degenerate into a quagmire (sic!).

The facts that the war was illegal having not obtained UN sanction and wrong were made even
worse for Americas image by the additional fact that it failed. George W Bushs photo on board an aircraft
carrier with the huge banner in the back reading Mission Accomplished may represent the epitaph of
American soft power. The US president appears as a clueless buffoon.
Global Perspectives

Global governance is adrift. Much of this arises from the lack of leadership, the absence of soft
power, of the US, and its inability to adjust to the new global realities, notably the rise of
China. Apart from the Middle East/North Africa quagmire, American leadership has been found most wanting on the global trade front. The
failure of the Doha Development Agenda and the consequent impotence and irrelevance of the WTO is in most part an American concoction.
The attempt to substitute the multilateral trade system with the new-fangled mega-regionals, la TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) and TTIP
(Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), is not only a mistake, as I have argued on a number of occasions in this column, but they are
also likely to fail. The protectionist tone of the current presidential candidates is, to say the least, unnerving.

A similar verdict of leaderless-ness (or indeed leading in the wrong direction) would apply to a number of
other major unmet issues facing the planet. On environment and climate change, there has been a modest improvement
with the Obama administration, though not to the extent that anyone can seriously speak of American leadership in many ways the US, as
great polluter, remains a major part of the problem, rather than providing solutions, let alone leading by example.

The 2008 global financial crisis has created a serious ( irreversible ?) dent in the image soft
power of American capitalism and American finance. The erstwhile Washington Consensus has lost legitimacy and
is effectively dead even while nothing has replaced it yet.

Climate change is not catastrophic---their impacts exaggerate.

Tol 14 Richard Tol, Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex, Professor of the
Economics of Climate Change at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Member of the Academia
Europaeaa European non-governmental scientific association, served as Coordinating Lead
Author for the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation and
Vulnerability, holds a Ph.D. in Economics and an M.Sc. in Econometrics and Operations
Research from the VU University Amsterdam, 2014, Bogus prophecies of doom will not fix the
climate, Financial Times, March 31st, Available Online at
https://next.ft.com/content/e8d011fa-b8b5-11e3-835e-00144feabdc0
Humans are a tough and adaptable species. People live on the equator and in the Arctic, in the
desert and in the rainforest. We survived the ice ages with primitive technologies. The idea that
climate change poses an existential threat to humankind is laughable .

Climate change will have consequences, of course. Since different plants and animals thrive in different climates, it will
affect natural ecosystems and agriculture. Warmer and wetter weather will advance the spread of tropical diseases. Seas will rise, putting
pressure on all that lives on the coast. These
impacts sound alarming but they need to be put in perspective
before we draw conclusions about policy.
According to Mondays report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a further warming of 2C could cause losses
equivalent to 0.2-2 per cent of world gross domestic product. On current trends, that level of warming would happen some time in the second
half of the 21st century. In other words, half a century of climate change is about as bad as losing one year of
economic growth.
Since the start of the crisis in the eurozone, the income of the average Greek has fallen more than 20 per cent. Climate
change is not,
then, the biggest problem facing humankind. It is not even its biggest environmental problem.
The World Health Organisation estimates that about 7m [million] people are now dying each year as a
result of air pollution. Even on the most pessimistic estimates, climate change is not expected
to cause loss of life on that scale for another 100 years .

Pakistans nukes are super secure-this is the most objective account

Jaspal, South Asian Strategic Stability Institute advisor, 2013
(Zafar, Pakistans nuclear weapons safety and security, 2-23,
http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/columns/23-Feb-
2013/pakistan-s-nuclear-weapons-safety-and-security, ldg)

The nature of debate; the conspiracy theories hatched against Pakistans nuclear programme and, above all, the fear of nuclear or radiological terrorist attacks

As the book reflects the biased

necessitate serious analysis of the subject, i.e. the safety and security of Pakistans nuclear weapons.

approach that is immensely lacking scientific research, the following discussion is an attempt to
present briefly the realistic-cum-objective account of the puzzle. Since the very beginning, Pakistans nuclear
programme has been facing negligible internal and significant external opposition. In reality, the internal nuclear abolitionists have miserably failed to cultivate their
viewpoint in the Pakistani society. The people of Pakistan have simply rejected their judgment about the demerits or repercussions of nuclear weapons in the
strategic environment of South Asia. They have vehemently supported the nuclear programme and defied the malicious propaganda unleashed to hinder
Islamabads pursuit to acquire indigenous nuclear weapons capability. Concurrently, the Government of Pakistan had constituted and implemented both short and
long term policies to develop the countrys nuclear deterrence capability, particularly after Indias nuclear explosion in Rajasthan on May 18, 1974. Moreover, it has

there has been no recorded incident of

been intelligently addressing the security challenges to its nuclear infrastructure. Therefore,

sabotage or theft of the Pakistani nuclear material to date. Needles to say, Pakistan has institutionalised highly-secured
systems, which has been improved gradually to thwart internal and external security challenges to its nuclear infrastructure and arsenals, since the very beginning
of the nuclear weapons programme. Immediately, after the nuclear weapons test in May 1998, the Government of Pakistan announced its National Command
Authority (NCA), which comprises the Employment Control Committee, the Development Control Committee and Strategic Plans Division (SPD) - the secretariat of
the Authority. The periodic meetings of the NCA, and briefings organised by the SPD, reveal that a range of overt and covert measures were adopted to guard the
countrys nuclear programme. A few of the explicit measures are spelled out in the following paragraphs. First, the SPD works on behalf of the NCA, which increases
its role in the nuclear decision-making. The Director General heads the SPD and is the focal person to ensure the safety and security of both the civilian and military
component of the countrys nuclear programme. In addition, the separate strategic forces commands had been raised in all the three services. The services retain

training, technical and administrative control over their strategic forces. Second, the custodians of the programme had
established a Security Division, which today has more than 20,000 trained personnel to guard
the arsenal. These trained soldiers are far superior to the terrorists . They are capable of guarding both nuclear
weapons and sensitive nuclear facilities from terrorist syndicate sabotage attempts and external powers incursions into the nuclear weapons locations. Third,

the NCA decided that nuclear weapons would not be stored at one place and very few people
know about their locations. One can count these people on fingers who exactly know about the
location of nuclear arsenals. The SPD introduced a very rigorous vetting process for the nuclear establishment, i.e. personal reliability
programme for military personals and human reliability programme for the civilians to prevent insiders link with the terrorist groups. The officers, who

are trusted with the weapons location information, ought to be under continuous surveillances
by the intelligence agency, which is directly reporting to the high-ups of the secretariat. This
methodology, certainly, conceals the location of the nuclear arsenals and also ensures the integrity of the employs. Fourth, the critics of Pakistans nuclear arsenals
safety apparatus have failed to comprehend thatits nukes are not maintained on a hair-trigger alert and, in times of
peace, its nuclear warheads are maintained separately from their non-nuclear assemblies. This
approach prevents accidental or unauthorised use of nuclear weapons. Fifth, the SPD has developed a foolproof security

system such as Permissive Action Link system, which is modelled after the one used in the US. It electronically locks the nuclear
weapons. The SPD also relies on a range of other measures, including dual key system. Sixth, Pakistans
Parliament legislated an Act - the Export Control on Goods, Technologies, Material and Equipment Related to Nuclear and Biological Weapons and their Delivery
Systems Act - in September 2004. The purpose of this Act is to further strengthen control on the export of sensitive technologies, particularly those related to
nuclear and biological weapons and their means of delivery. Seventh, Pakistan established a Strategic Export Control Division (SECDIV), in the Ministry of Foreign

Eighth, to
Affairs, in April 2007. Its purpose is to further tighten control over exports by monitoring and implementing the Export Control Act of 2004.

prevent the possibility of theft and sabotage during the transportation of sensitive nuclear
materials, effective measures have been instituted to fulfil international obligations under the
UNSCR 1540. Side by side, it has been ensured that specialist vehicles and tamper-proof
containers are provided for the transportation of nuclear materials that are escorted by military
personnel. Nevertheless, Islamabad is very actively participating in the international arrangements to prevent any nuclear or radiological terrorism. For
instance, Pakistan was among the first countries that submitted a report to the UN to fulfil its obligations under the UNSCR 1540. Further, it joined the US sponsored
Container Security Initiative (CSI) in March 2006 and the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT) in 2007. Also, it is part of the Nuclear Security
Summit (NSS) process - an initiative taken by President Barack Obama that has led to two successful summits in 2010 and 2012 held at Washington DC and Seoul.
Pakistan participated in the two summits and made significant contributions in supporting the global efforts towards nuclear safety and security. Former Prime
Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, in his speech at the Seoul Summit in March 2012, had categorically stated: Pakistan has taken effective measures, which are the most
important part of its efforts to enhance nuclear security.We have been implementing a nuclear security action plan in cooperation with the IAEA, which
reinforces physical protection of nuclear medical centres and civilian nuclear plants. Pakistan has established nuclear security training centres to act as a regional
and international hub to train people. Pakistan had been deploying special nuclear material portals at key entry and exit points to detect, deter and prevent illicit
trafficking of nuclear and radioactive materials.Together, we have taken steps to create a secure world that will not live under the fear of nuclear terrorist
attacks. We firmly believe that nuclear material must never fall into the hands of terrorists. Islamabad, despite its reliable nuclear safety and security
arrangements, unfortunately, confronts the joint opposition of its own nationalists, who do not miss a single opportunity (even today) to criticise, malign, and desist
the positive developmental trajectory of the national nuclear weapons programme. They frequently spell out negative hypothetical scenarios and recommend the
ruling elite to roll-back the countrys nuclear weapon programme without taking into account Indias fatting military muscle. Ironically, they deliberately or

In the same vein, there are numerous Western

inadvertently ignore the trends in the South Asian strategic environment.

analysts, who are continuously highlighting similar unfounded fears mainly to malign Pakistan.
They overlook the measures that it has taken over more than one decade to ensure the safety
and security of its nuclear assets. In short, one can conclude that either these analysts have a nefarious agenda to soften the states
defensive fence, or maybe they lack the strategic vision to understand the indispensability of nuclear weapons for the military security of Pakistan. As a final word,
the national consensus on Pakistans nuclear programme and the institutionalised structure of the NCA and its secretariat constituted vigilant custodians of the

These safety and security arrangements manifest that neither terrorist

countrys nuclear programme.

networks, nor any external power is capable to seize its nuclear weapons. Hence, the physical-protection
systems at the Pakistani nuclear facilities are well-built. There are custodial safeguards, and thereby these facilities are not accessible to unauthorised outsiders and
under constant monitoring process.
No nuclear terrorism.
Weiss 15 Visiting scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at
Stanford. Leonard, On fear and nuclear terrorism, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
March/April 2015 vol. 71 no. 2 75-87.
If the fear of nuclear war has thus had some positive effects, the fear of nuclear terrorism has had mainly negative effects on the lives of
millions of people around the world, including in the United States, and even affects negatively the prospects for a more peaceful world.
Although there has been much commentary on the interest that Osama bin Laden, when he
was alive, reportedly expressed in obtaining nuclear weapons (see Mowatt-Larssen, 2010), and some terrorists no
doubt desire to obtain such weapons, evidence of any terrorist group working seriously toward

the theft of nuclear weapons or the acquisition of such weapons by other means is virtually
nonexistent. This may be due to a combination of reasons. Terrorists understand that it is not hard to
terrorize a population without committing mass murder: In 2002, a single sniper in the Washington, DC area,
operating within his own automobile and with one accomplice, killed 10 people and changed the behavior of virtually the entire populace of the
city over a period of three weeks by instilling fear of being a randomly chosen shooting victim when out shopping.

Terrorists who believe the commission of violence helps their cause have access to many explosive materials and conventional weapons to ply
their trade.
If public sympathy is important to their cause, an apparent plan or commission of
mass murder is not going to help them, and indeed will make their enemies even more
implacable, reducing the prospects of achieving their goals. The acquisition of nuclear weapons by terrorists is
not like the acquisition of conventional weapons; it requires significant time, planning,
resources, and expertise, with no guarantees that an acquired device would work. It requires
putting aside at least some aspects of a groups more immediate activities and goals for an
attempted operation that no terrorist group has previously accomplished . While absence of evidence does
not mean evidence of absence (as then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld kept reminding us during the search for Saddams nonexistent
nuclear weapons), it is reasonable to conclude that the fear of nuclear terrorism has swamped realistic consideration of the threat. As Brian
Jenkins, a longtime observer of terrorist groups, wrote in 2008:

Nuclear terrorismturns out to be a world of truly worrisome particles of truth. Yet it is also a world of fantasies, nightmares, urban legends,
fakes, hoaxes, scams, stings, mysterious substances, terrorist boasts, sensational claims, description of vast conspiracies, allegations of
coverups, lurid headlines, layers of misinformation and disinformation. Much is inconclusive or contradictory. Only the terror is real. (Jenkins,
2008: 26)

The three ways terrorists might get a nuke

To illustrate in more detail how fear has distorted the threat of nuclear terrorism, consider
the three possibilities for
terrorists to obtain a nuclear weapon: steal one; be given one created by a nuclear weapon
state; manufacture one. None of these possibilities has a high probability of occurring .

Stealing nukes. Nothingis better protected in a nuclear weapon state than the weapons themselves,
which have multiple layers of safeguards that, in the United States, include intelligence and
surveillance, electronic locks (including so-called permissive action links that prevent detonation unless a code is entered into
the lock), gated and locked storage facilities, armed guards, and teams of elite responders if an
attempt at theft were to occur. We know that most weapon states have such protections, and there
is no reason to believe that such protections are missing in the remaining states, since no
weapon state would want to put itself at risk of an unintended nuclear detonation of its own
weapons by a malevolent agent. Thus, the likelihood of an unauthorized agent secretly planning
a theft, without being discovered, and getting access to weapons with the intent and physical ability to carry
them off in the face of such layers of protection is extremely low but it isnt impossible, especially in the case where the thief is an
insider.

The insider threat helped give credibility to the stories, circulating about 20 years ago, that there were loose nukes in the USSR, based on
some statements by a Soviet general who claimed the regime could not account for more than 40 suitcase nukes that had been built. The
Russian government denied the claim, and at this point there is no evidence that any nukes were ever loose. Now, it is unclear if any such
weapon would even work after 20 years of corrosion of both the nuclear and non-nuclear materials in the device and the radioactive decay of
certain isotopes.

Because of the large number of terrorist groups operating in its geographic vicinity, Pakistan is frequently suggested as a
possible candidate for scenarios in which a terrorist group either seizes a weapon via collaboration with insiders sympathetic to its
cause, or in which terrorists inherit nuclear weapons by taking over the arsenal of a failed nuclear state that has devolved into chaos. Attacks
by a terrorist group on a Pakistani military base, at Kamra, which is believed to house nuclear weapons in some form, have been referenced in
connection with such security concerns (Nelson and Hussain, 2012). However, the Kamra base contained US fighter planes, including F-16s,
used to bomb Taliban bases in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, so the planes, not nuclear weapons, were the likely target of the terrorists,
and in any case the mission was a failure. Moreover, Pakistan
is not about to collapse, and the Pakistanis are
known to have received major international assistance in technologies for protecting their
weapons from unauthorized use, store them in somewhat disassembled fashion at multiple
locations, and have a sophisticated nuclear security structure in place (see Gregory, 2013; Khan, 2012).

However, the
weapons are assembled at times of high tension in the region, and, to keep a degree
of uncertainty in their location, they are moved from place to place, making them more
vulnerable to seizure at such times (Goldberg and Ambinder, 2011). (It should be noted that US nuclear weapons were subject
to such risks during various times when the weapons traveled US highways in disguised trucks and accompanying vehicles, but such travel and
the possibility of terrorist seizure was never mentioned publicly.)

Such scenarios of seizure in Pakistan would require a major security breakdown within the army leading to a takeover of weapons by a nihilistic
terrorist group with little warning, while army loyalists along with India and other interested parties (like the United States) stand by and do not
intervene. This is not a particularly realistic scenario, but its also not a reason to conclude that Pakistans nuclear arsenal is of no concern. It is,
not only because of an internal threat, but especially because it raises the possibility of nuclear war with India. For this and other reasons,
intelligence agencies in multiple countries spend considerable resources tracking the Pakistani nuclear situation to reduce the likelihood of
surprises. But any consideration of Pakistans nuclear arsenal does bring home (once again) the folly of US policy in the 1980s, when stopping
the Pakistani nuclear program was put on a back burner in order to prosecute the Cold War against the Soviets in Afghanistan (which ultimately
led to the establishment of Al Qaeda). Some of the loudest voices expressing concern about nuclear terrorism belong to former senior
government officials who supported US assistance to the mujahideen and the accompanying diminution of US opposition to Pakistans nuclear
activities.

Acquiring nukes as a gift. Following the shock of 9/11, government officials and the media imagined many scenarios in which terrorists
obtain nuclear weapons; one of those scenarios involves a weapon state using a terrorist group for delivery of a nuclear weapon. There are
at least two reasons why this scenario is unlikely: First, once a weapon state loses control of a
weapon, it cannot be sure the weapon will be used by the terrorist group as intended. Second, the
state cannot be sure that the transfer of the weapon has been undetected either before or
after the fact of its detonation (see Lieber and Press, 2013). The use of the weapon by a terrorist group will ultimately result in
the transferring nation becoming a nuclear target just as if it had itself detonated the device. This is a powerful deterrent to

such a transfer, making the transfer a low-probability event.

Although these first two ways in which terrorists might obtain a nuclear weapon have very small probabilities of occurring (there is no available
data suggesting that terrorist groups have produced plans for stealing a weapon, nor has there been any public information suggesting that any
nuclear weapon state has seriously considered providing a nuclear weapon to a sub-national group), the probabilities cannot be said to be zero
as long as nuclear weapons exist.
Manufacturing a nuclear weapon. To accomplish this, a terrorist group would have to obtain an
appropriate amount of one of the two most popular materials for nuclear weapons, highly enriched uranium (HEU) or
plutonium separated from fuel used in a production reactor or a power reactor. Weapon-grade plutonium is found in weapon
manufacturing facilities in nuclear weapon states and is very highly protected until it is inserted in a weapon. Reactor-grade
plutonium, although still capable of being weaponized, is less protected, and in that sense is a more attractive target for a
terrorist, especially since it has been produced and stored in prodigious quantities in a number of nuclear weapon states and non-weapon
states, particularly Japan.

But terrorist use of plutonium for a nuclear explosive device would require the construction of an
implosion weapon, requiring the fashioning of an appropriate explosive lens of TNT, a notoriously difficult technical
problem. And if a high nuclear yield (much greater than 1 kiloton) is desired, the use of reactor-grade plutonium would
require a still more sophisticated design. Moreover, if the plutonium is only available through chemical separation from
some (presumably stolen) spent fuel rods, additional technical complications present themselves. There is at least one
study showing that a small team of people with the appropriate technical skills and equipment could, in principle, build a plutonium-based
nuclear explosive device (Mark et al., 1986). But even if one discounts the high probability that the plan would
be discovered at some stage (missing plutonium or spent fuel rods would put the authorities and intelligence operations under
high alert), translating this into a real-world situation suggests an extremely low probability of

technical success. More likely, according to one well-known weapon designer,4 would be the death of the person or
persons in the attempt to build the device.
There is the possibility of an insider threat; in one example, a team of people working at a reactor or reprocessing site could conspire to
steal some material and try to hide the diversion as MUF (materials unaccounted for) within the nuclear safeguards system. But this scenario
would require intimate knowledge of the materials accounting system on which safeguards in
that state are based and adds another layer of complexity to an operation with low probability
of success.
The situation is different in the case of using highly enriched uranium , which presents fewer technical
challenges. Here an implosion design is not necessary, and a gun type design is the more likely approach. Fear of this scenario has sometimes
been promoted in the literature via the quotation of a famous statement by nuclear physicist Luis Alvarez that dropping a subcritical amount of
HEU onto another subcritical amount from a distance of five feet could result in a nuclear yield. The probability of such a yield (and its size)
would depend on the geometry of the HEU components and the amount of material. More likely than a substantial nuclear explosion from such
a scenario would be a criticality accident that would release an intense burst of radiation, killing persons in the immediate vicinity, or (even less
likely) a low-yield nuclear fizzle that could be quite damaging locally (like a large TNT explosion) but also carry a psychological effect because
of its nuclear dimension.

In any case, since the critical mass of a bare metal perfect sphere of pure U-235 is approximately 56 kilograms, stealing
that much
highly enriched material (and getting away without detection, an armed fight, or a criticality accident) is a major problem
for any thief and one significantly greater than the stealing of small amounts of HEU and lower-
enriched material that has been reported from time to time over the past two decades, mostly from
former Soviet sites that have since had their security greatly strengthened. Moreover, fashioning the material into a form
more useful or convenient for explosive purposes could likely mean a need for still more material than
suggested above, plus a means for machining it, as would be the case for HEU fuel assemblies
from a research reactor. In a recent paper, physics professor B. C. Reed discusses the feasibility of terrorists building a low-yield,
gun-type fission weapon, but admittedly avoids the issue of whether the terrorists would likely have the technical ability to carry feasibility to
realization and whether the terrorists are likely to be successful in stealing the needed material and hiding their project as it proceeds (Reed,
2014). But this is the crux of the nuclear terrorism issue. There is no argument about feasibility, which has been accepted for decades, even for
plutonium-based weapons, ever since Ted Taylor first raised it in the early 1970s5 and a Senate subcommittee held hearings in the late 1970s
on a weapon design created by a Harvard dropout from information he obtained from the public section of the Los Alamos National Laboratory
library (Fialka, 1978). Likewise, no one can deny the terrible consequences of a nuclear explosion. The question is the level of risk, and what
steps are acceptable in a democracy for reducing it.

Although the attention in the literature given to nuclear terrorism scenarios involving HEU would suggest major attempts to obtain such
material by terrorist groups, there is only one known case of a major theft of HEU. It involves a US government
contractor processing HEU for the US Navy in Apollo, Pennsylvania in the 1970s at a time when security and materials accounting were
extremely lax. The theft was almost surely carried out by agents of the Israeli government with the probable involvement of a person or
persons working for the contractor, not a sub-national terrorist group intent on making its own weapons (Gilinsky and Mattson, 2010). The
circumstances under which this theft occurred were unique, and there was significant
information about the contractors relationship to Israel that should have rung alarm bells and
would do so today. Although it involved a government and not a sub-national group, the theft underscores the importance of security
and accounting of nuclear materials, especially because the technical requirements for making an HEU weapon are less daunting than for a
plutonium weapon, and the probability of success by a terrorist group, though low, is certainly greater than zero. Over the past two decades,
there has been a significant effort to increase protection of such materials, particularly in recent
years through the efforts of nongovernmental organizations like the International Panel on Fissile Materials6 and advocates

like Matthew Bunn working within the Obama administration (Bunn and Newman, 2008), though the administration has apparently not
seen the need to make the materials as secure as the weapons themselves.

Are terrorists even interested in making their own nuclear weapons?

A recent paper (Friedman and Lewis, 2014) postulates a scenario by which terrorists might seize nuclear materials in Pakistan for fashioning a
weapon. While jihadist sympathizers are known to have worked within the Pakistani nuclear establishment, thereis little to no
evidence that terrorist groups in or outside the region are seriously trying to obtain a nuclear
capability. And Pakistan has been operating a uranium enrichment plant for its weapons program for nearly 30 years with no credible
reports of diversion of HEU from the plant.

Thereis one stark example of a terrorist organization that actually started a nuclear effort: the
Aum Shinrikyo group. At its peak, this religious cult had a membership estimated in the tens of thousands spread over a variety of
countries, including Japan; its members had scientific expertise in many areas; and the group was well funded. Aum Shinrikyo obtained access
to natural uranium supplies, but the nuclear weapon effort stalled and was abandoned. The group was also
interested in chemical weapons and did produce sarin nerve gas with which they attacked the Tokyo subway system, killing 13 persons. Aum
Shinrikyo is now a small organization under continuing close surveillance.
What about highly organized groups, designated appropriately as terrorist, that have acquired enough territory to enable
them to operate in a quasi-governmental fashion, like the Islamic State (IS)? Such organizations are certainly dangerous, but how
would nuclear terrorism fit in with a program for building and sustaining a new caliphate that
would restore past glories of Islamic society, especially since, like any organized government,
the Islamic State would itself be vulnerable to nuclear attack? Building a new Islamic state out of
radioactive ashes is an unlikely ambition for such groups. However, now that it has become notorious, apocalyptic
pronouncements in Western media may begin at any time, warning of the possible acquisition and use of nuclear weapons by IS.

Even if a terror group were to achieve technical nuclear proficiency, the time, money, and
infrastructure needed to build nuclear weapons creates significant risks of discovery that
would put the group at risk of attack. Given the ease of obtaining conventional explosives and
the ability to deploy them, a terrorist group is unlikely to exchange a big part of its operational
program to engage in a risky nuclear development effort with such doubtful prospects. And, of
course, 9/11
has heightened sensitivity to the need for protection, lowering further the
probability of a successful effort.

Their Benjamin card says we would need to promote new energy and climate policies to
solve, obviously trump would never to allow that if the thesis of their aff is true
Benjamin 8 (Daniel Benjamin, Director of the John Sloan Dickey Center for International
Understanding @ Dartmouth, served as Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator for
Counterterrorism at the U.S. State Department, Strategic Counterterrorism, Brookings Policy
Paper 7, October 2008, available online @ https://www.brookings.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2016/06/10_terrorism_benjamin.pdf, accessed 11-8-2017)
Terrorism is a real and urgent threat to the American people and our interests; a threat that
could become far more dangerous if terrorists acquire nuclear or biological weapons. An
effective counterterrorism policy must go beyond uncompromising efforts to thwart those who seek to harm us today
we must engage other countries whose cooperation is essential to meet this threat, and we must
ensure that new terrorist recruits do not come to take the place of those we have defeated. The policies pursued by the Bush administration
have too often been counterproductive and self-defeating. In the name of an offensive strategy, they have undermined the values and
principles that made the United States a model for the world, dismayed our friends around the world and jeopardized their cooperation with
us, and provided ammunition for terrorist recruitment in the Middle East and beyond. To achieve our long-term objective we must go
beyond narrow counterterrorism policies to embed counterterrorism in an overarching national security strategy
designed to restore American leadership and respect in the world. This leadership must be based on a strong commitment to our values and
to building the structures of international cooperation that are needed not only to fight
terrorists, but also to meet other key challenges of our time: proliferation; climate change
and energy security; the danger of pandemic disease; and the need to sustain a vibrant
global economy that lifts the lives of people everywhere . We need to demonstrate that the model of
liberty and tolerance embodied by the United States offer the best hope of a better life for
people everywhere and that the terrorists, not the United States, are the enemy of these universal ambitions. We must
pursue an integrated set of policieson non-proliferation, energy and climate, global public
health and economic developmentwhich reflect a recognition that in an interdependent
world, the American people can be safe and prosperous only if others too share in these
blessings. Our policies must demonstrate a respect for differences of history, culture and
tradition, while remaining true to the principles of liberty embodied in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. This kind of enlightened self-interest led others to rally to American leadership in the Cold War
and offers the best hope for sustaining our leadership in the future.