On 5 June 2025, the Oxford Union assembled to debate the motion, ‘This House Believes that No One Can Be Illegal on Stolen Land’. With the Trump administration setting a new target to arrest at least 3000 people for deportation every day over the weekend, and the UK’s aim to strengthen borders after Keir Starmer’s speech that the nation is becoming an ‘island of strangers’, the debate’s contemporary relevance cannot be understated.
Arguing for the motion were Anita Okunde, the Union’s president and a student at Magdalen College; Yeji Kim, a master’s student at Reuben College; Dr. Aviva Chomsky, a professor at Salem State University with research interests in immigration and settler colonialism, and the eldest daughter of linguists Noam and Carol Chomsky; and Dr. Mehreen Faruqi, the current senator for New South Wales and spokesperson for Anti-Racism with a current campaign to decolonise international aid. Opposing the motion were Victor Marroquin-Merino, Director of Media at Reuben College; Andrew “Art” Arthur, the current research fellow for the Centre for Immigration Studies, who previously served as the staff director for the US Committee on Oversight and Government Reform; RJ Hauman, President for the National Immigration Centre for Enforcement and MP David Seymour, who served as the 21st vice prime minister of New Zealand and a member of the Association of Consumer and Taxpayers (ACT) party.
Opening the debate was the proposition’s Okunde, who immediately focused on dismantling the principle of the motion as she emphasised that borders were artificial constructs created by bloodshed. She made a case using Seymour’s home nation of New Zealand, attacking its complicity in colonial history with the example of the $500 million spent on militarising borders, claiming that their borders “lock out those [they] have suffocated”. She furthered her case through reference to the current genocide in Palestine, deeming the genocide as “gaslighting on a global level”. She went on to demean borders as “colonial weapons” within the hands of those in power, arguing that borders are not necessarily about homeland security but a “blueprint of control” which is used to dehumanise natives. Okunde finished her argument on a powerful reflection that the real “illegals” were those who continue to deny the motion: in presenting current immigration policy as a “war on indigenous sovereignty”, she metaphorised borders as vehicles which subjugate those deemed unwelcome.
Opening the case for the opposition was Victor Marroquin-Merino, who condemned the motion itself as merely a “powerful slogan which strikes at hearts”, but one must really consider the logical implications at which the argument falls apart. The claim was deemed as a “luxury belief”, which refers to ideals that signal virtue without bearing any cost and cannot face the difficult reality of society. He preempted the proposition’s attack on the notion of “stolen land” and the belief that the laws made by occupiers are “illegitimate”. He questioned this line of reasoning as one which leads to “interesting places”, for if the very soil is stained, then “surely all institutions built upon it must be rejected”. He subverted their argument in a simplistic and binary sense, arguing that then “no one is legal either”, for if immigration law is made void, then no other laws, from “property to marriage to those for benefit entitlement” hold legitimacy. He stated that those who vote in favour of the motion are really in favour of abolishing the very laws which will protect migrants. He weakly drew upon his Peruvian heritage, arguing that his state’s heritage would be under jeopardy if the Spanish questioned their authority on the land, highlighting how it would be “an infinite regress of creative destruction which cannot form a global order”. His argument essentially fell short as he deemed that the proposition rests on “utopian” expectation which replaces “governance with grievance, law with narrative, and policy with the performative”.
Continuing the case for the proposition was Yeji Kim, who sustained the focus on borders through an emphasis on how immigrant movement is criminalised, as those in power point a “righteous finger at an artificial border armed with militant power”. She argued that there was no such thing as an illegal human being, with the physical lines drawn on maps by empirical leaders missing the intricacies of community. She furthered that those responsible for such division of stolen land now bear a “moral duty” to offer sanctity, which is not to be mistaken for charity, but justice. She brought in pragmatic solutions: instead of emphasising borders as reparations, she asks that tools such as visas should be utilised to give those the freedom to rebuild lives which the Empire “blundered”. Similarly to Okunde, Kim brought in the current case of Palestine, deeming how their desperation to escape is perceived ignorantly as “queue jumping”. She finalised her argument, stating that no one can be illegal, but those who have stolen land must open it, as “justice [is] not just a famed apology but a passport in a pocket”.
Continuing the case for the opposition was Andrew “Art” Arthur, who believed there was a critically unanswered question within the debate: when, if ever, were people living on their own unstolen land? He drew upon how pre-colonial America was a conflict between people, and how the question of who really owns particular land remains “unanswered, unknown, and unknowable”. He redirected his argument, stating that those “who come in” must not adversely affect national security, wages, income, and working conditions. He reminded the chamber that “1 million people per year get green cards every year into America”, claiming this to be a “generous system” which “plays by the rules”. He asked how unrestricted migration would make lives better, deeming that it would “only replicate harm rather than make lives better”. He concluded his argument by claiming the motion “ignores the process of assimilation and naturalisation”, a process which integrates immigrants into a new body where “dissidents are dispossessed”. Controlled migration is understood by Arthur to naturalise newcomers into policy as they adopt values and culture, which changes their very nature as they “will become one of us”. He praised Trump’s administration for this very principle, whilst condemning Biden’s administration for their lack of control on “illegal immigration, which cannot sustain interest in legal immigration”.
The case for the proposition was furthered by Dr. Aviva Chomsky, who succinctly disputed the terms of the motion. First, she deemed the term illegal as “illegitimate”, as every human being has the simple human right to exist. The majority of law understandably uses legitimate reasoning to prohibit certain actions, whilst the act of personhood is in itself not illegal. However, personhood is made illegal only according to the status of illegality. She continued to condemn the colonial term in its determination of a person’s status and its following exclusion, deeming the term a contemporary concept of colonialism which manifests an inferior status for those who are colonised. She also disputed the phrase “stolen land”, drawing upon the case of settler colonies, which have not ended, observing settler colonies to be new countries where only colonisers could settle. Chomsky drew upon the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment (which defines citizenship as those born in the USA), arguing that the amendment conflicted with the racial policies before its creation, which resulted in Congress’s proposition of racial policy upon immigration laws. She brought into question “abstract liberalism” – the concept of racial inequalities being a result of individual decision and effort – which ignores how all countries have not been created equally, as free sovereign countries are able to secure borders. She furthered the importance of immigrants to such states as economies remain dependent on their workforce, especially with wealthy states experiencing population decline with falling birth rates and ageing populations: in defining immigrants as illegal, she states that states “deprive [immigrants] of their citizenship”. She ended on the extremely poignant example of the indigenous population’s exclusion from the US, claiming that we “cannot erase history as it has shaped the state, but for a country to tell the indigenous that they are illegal is the height of colonial, exclusionary violence”.
Furthering the case for the opposition was Hauman, who placed emphasis on how illegal immigration “absolves the nation state into a global border”. He drew on his personal experience fighting for his borders as he advised the White House and formed policy in Congress. He claimed the real victims are the “real people of the UK and USA”, expanding that really “Western people are under siege” with their traditions under threat. He claimed citizenship should be “exclusionary”, as immigration policy defends “what is left”, condemning the motion as “determined to destroy rather than assimilate”. He then moves to unoriginally obliterate the motion itself as a “confusing and lazy slogan” which refuses to set itself on legal or moral precedent. He claimed that borders were not cruel but standard as a nation’s duty, which does not necessitate it as “xenophobia, but Government 101”, to which mocking laughter resounded throughout the chamber. He continued to exemplify America as built upon principle, its lines erased by the Biden administration, which resulted in “sovereignty being sacrificed intentionally”. He praised Trump’s administration for “redrawing these lines” since “if no one is deemed illegal, then no one is safe”. He reflected on alleged immigrant involvement on rape trafficking, claiming that “their illegal actions” must be condemned “to protect sovereignty and national security”. He finalised his argument on the principle of uncontrolled immigration being “corrosive” and “undoing the foundations of society”, with nations having a “duty to preserve and not apologise into oblivion’’.
Closing the case for the proposition was Dr. Mehreen Faruqi, who used her home nation, Australia, as “the most egregious example of cruel, inhumane immigration policy based on systemic racism”. The indigenous people who cultivated and lived upon the land were unjustly deemed as Nobody’s Land by White explorers, an action which severely limited first-person sovereignty over their land. It is this hypocrisy at the “heart of settler colonialism” which Faruqi claimed fuels unjust immigration systems which criminalise movement that subjugates immigrants. Applause broke out for Faruqi halfway through her speech as she reminded the chamber that it was settler colonialists who “committed the original sin of illegals on stolen land”. She further spoke on the state of the immigrant who, after the hurdles of immigration policy, is under a continually questioned status, deeming that colonialism is not a relic of the past but remains in the racist systems which incarcerate in the present. She emphasised how borders are conceptually new but deadly weapons which cause displacement, war, and humanitarian crisis. She continued her attack on colonialism, deeming how by nature it provokes differences between communities that are designed to divide, separate, and control to maintain one type of nationalism. She wittily provoked Hauman for exemplifying this in his speech. Like Okunde and Kim, she reminded the chamber of Palestine, condemning Israel as a settler state which does not truly care for justice, as if it did, “they would be making leaps to rectify historical injustices”. She finalised the proposition’s argument on the reminder that the motion is “far more than a cry about semantics but a call for justice and the oppressed”.
Closing the proposition’s case, and indeed the debate itself, was MP David Seymour, who asked how we could “actually build a better world”. He claimed it is arbitrary to draw a line on “where ownership ended and theft began”, and any decision as to whether land was stolen is “arbitrary, made to reinforce in its affirmative”. He argued that it is actually the “arbitrary line” which begins the process of “othering” as it divides people into villains and victims before they themselves are born. He claimed that the only reason movement occurs to other jurisdictions is because those spaces are “better places to live”. He claimed that a domestic population would “support immigration if they see it to support a nation rather than destabilising it”. He admitted that immigration does enrich a country, but it must be asked why “people want to come here” and how this reasoning can be sustained. He closed his case by dismissing the proposition’s notion of the motion as “abstract liberalism” and instead deemed it a difficult reality.
After hearing all the arguments, members of the Union then had an opportunity to vote for the side that most convinced them. The final result was a relatively close 98-83 in favour of the motion, meaning that the Oxford Union does believe that no one is illegal on stolen land. In my humble opinion, the opposition’s case remained weak in their flawed arguments based upon racialised belief, alongside their lack of interrogation of borders and their integrity, which was aptly argued by the proposition.