Members of the GW College Democrats and GW College Republicans debated the impacts of several key policies of President Donald Trump’s first 100 days of his second term in office in Funger Hall on Wednesday.
GW Republicans members Kaesar Grewal and Alvin Wright went head-to-head with GW Democrats members Ethan Kerr and Siddharth Kwatra on topics including the economy, immigration and civil liberties. Around 100 students attended the debate, moderated by GW Republicans President Victoria Carlson and GW Democrats President Emily-Anne Santiago.
Wright opened the debate and said the country is experiencing inflation because former President Joe Biden’s administration was an “utter disaster.” He said the Biden administration had the “worst immigration crisis in history” with over 10 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States and the “worst inflation crisis” in 40 years.
The Office of Homeland Security Statistics estimated about 11 million undocumented people lived in the United States in 2022 — the most recent year of an official estimate, up about 300,000 from before Trump first took office in 2016 but lower than the peak of 12.2 million in 2007. Inflation hit a record high in July 2022 under the Biden administration, which experts largely attributed to a larger global trend as countries lifted COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, causing supply chain shortages.
“Since we took office on every single one of these metrics the country is in a much better position,” Wright said. “The border is sealed right now, the economy is in much better shape, inflation is down.”
In the first two months since Trump assumed office, inflation has steadily declined from 3 percent in January to 2.4 percent in March, but experts say inflation is likely to surge due to the administration’s trade policies, imposing steep tariffs on dozens of countries earlier this month.
Kwatra delivered the Democratic opening statement and said he understood that many Democrats, including himself, are “unsatisfied” with the current stances of the national Democratic Party because it is not resisting the Trump administration’s policies on issues, like immigration and international trade, enough.
“We need a government which, unlike the current administration, actually cares about human decency, compassion, good policy and everyday Americans, not just billionaires,” Kwatra said.
He said he acknowledges the need for immigration reform, a key policy area for the Trump administration, but he disagrees with the Trump administration’s mass deportation flights and revocation of student visas.
“We need immigration reform that doesn’t force people who contribute everything for this country to wait for 15 years to get U.S. citizenship, that does not force tourists to wait in line for two years to get into this great country and does not force students on American college campuses to live in fear,” Kwatra said.
The most common path to U.S. citizenship is being a lawful permanent resident for at least five years and then applying for naturalization, which had an average processing time of about six months in 2024, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The discussion then moved to economic policy, where moderators asked the debaters to evaluate the Trump administration’s use of tariffs and their effect on a possible “trade war” with China.
The Trump administration announced it would impose “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of countries on April 2, with a minimum rate of 10 percent and as high as 104 percent on Chinese goods. On April 9, Trump issued a 90-day pause on rates above 10 percent after the levies caused stock markets to decline steeply, with an exception for China which Trump raised to 145 percent as retaliation for raising its rate on United States imports to 125 percent.
Wright said the United States’ trade market was “literally a gold mine” for foreign companies because of the country’s previously low trade barriers and tariffs. He said the tariffs were a move of “reciprocity” to retaliate against countries like China that have had historically higher tariffs and trade barriers than the United States.
“Look at the actual results,” Wright said. “Since the President announced this 10 percent tariff regime across the board, 75 countries contacted the White House to renegotiate trade deals. This is clearly working.”
Trump said in a recent Time Magazine interview he had made 200 deals related to trade but would not reveal with which countries or organizations he negotiated with.
Kerr said the tariffs would cause economic instability in the United States, referencing turbulent financial markets and said the tariffs could cause a loss of domestic manufacturing jobs because they will increase the cost of imported raw materials. He said a recent International Monetary Fund report raised the likelihood of the United States going into a recession from 25 percent to 40 percent from October 2024 because of the increased trade tensions.
“You cannot find me one economist that says that this is good for the U.S. economy,” Kerr said. “You’re not going to find me one economist that says this is going to be beneficial.”
The moderators then asked the debaters their thoughts on due process and Trump’s invocation of The Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 wartime law which the Trump administration is using to deport alleged members of Venezuelan gangs, which he claimed have “invaded” the country, without due process.
Wright said there was a need for stricter border control measures because illegal immigration poses a “threat” to public safety. He said illegal immigration was not a “victimless crime” and that people have lost their life due to illegal immigration, like Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student killed by a Venezuelan man who authorities said entered the United States illegally.
There is no national data collected on undocumented immigrant crime rates, but an analysis from 2013 to 2022 of homicide conviction rates in Texas found it was 2.2 per 100,000 for illegal immigrants, compared to 3 per 100,000 for native-born Americans.
“We have a responsibility, we have a duty, to deport these illegal aliens, and we will not stop until every last illegal alien that poses a threat to public safety is removed from this country,” Wright said.
Kwatra said the mass deportation efforts contradict the Trump administration’s government efficiency initiatives because of their high cost to American taxpayers. According to U.S. officials, deportation flights cost nearly $5,000 per migrant.
He said the Trump administration’s immigration policies are “harming the economy” and “blatantly violating the Constitution,” by not providing due process to migrants targeted for deportation.
He said Republicans are tolerating Trump “breaking the rule of law” by continuing to support him after he suggested deporting “homegrown” criminals — which Kwatra said implied U.S. citizens — to Salvadoran prisons minutes before a press briefing with El Salvador’s president earlier this month.
“They have violated the First Amendment, they violated the Fifth Amendment, they violated the 14th Amendment, and they have violated the principle of habeas corpus, and they are not giving those people due process,” Kwatra said.
In the Republican closing statement, Grewal said the Trump administration was having economic success because inflation reached a four-year low of 2.4 percent in March. He said Republicans are “excited” to meet a “new and united” country where Americans are “prosperous and thriving.”
“All of that is a result of Republicans working for the average American who was forgotten by the Democratic and neoliberal policies that shed our economy’s jobs and allowed us to become reliant on our enemies,” Grewal said.
Kerr said Democrats should be “fighting” for American civil liberties, like freedom of speech and due process, which he said the Trump administration has violated.
“We should be talking about the rule of law. We should not allow this fascist to come in and cut away our Constitution,” Kerr said.
