The Political Student Assembly and the USC Political Union hosted the Spring 2025 student debate Tuesday evening at Tommy’s Place. The event saw members of Trojan Democrats and USC College Republicans debate the efficiency of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, the morality of President Donald Trump’s immigration laws, and the pros and cons of tariffs.

The opening debate topic was immigration, and Dhyuthi Chegu, a senior majoring in public policy, argued for the Republican side. Chegu compared immigration laws to speed limits by saying both will be ignored if they are not enforced by laws.

Chegu said undocumented immigrants were taking jobs from American citizens and that the United States should prioritize protecting domestic interests and ensuring citizens are taken care of before fixing and expediting the legal immigration system.

Chegu referenced Laken Riley — a nursing student murdered by an undocumented immigrant — as evidence for why due process should not be prioritized for undocumented immigrants. Chegu claimed that Kilmar Abrego Garcia — an undocumented immigrant mistakenly deported to El Salvador on March 15 who did not receive due process — “gets more of a fight for his rights than the actual citizens of [the U.S.].”

Sara Xiao Stienecker, a senior majoring in political science, argued on the Democrat side. She said that her mother was an immigrant and that immigrants were “not a threat” to American workers and instead took jobs in agriculture that American citizens did not want. Stienecker repeatedly asked the audience if Trump’s policies on immigration made them feel “any safer.”

“[Trump’s] government is questioning and detaining children, church attendants and hospital patients. He’s ignoring due process and sending protected individuals to foreign prisons,” Steinecker said. “The Fifth Amendment states that no person may be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. You’ll note it does not say ‘no citizens.’”

In response, Chegu said, “I would argue that a person’s right to life matters a lot more than someone’s right to due process.”

Kenleonard Oparaji, a sophomore majoring in public relations and advertising, debated Ben Sheyman, a senior majoring in political science, on tariffs. Oparaji opened the debate for the Democrat side, claiming that Trump’s tariffs would cause countries like China, Japan and South Korea to unite against American trade policies and that tariffs were equivalent to a tax on Americans.

“[Tariffs] mean higher prices for future homes because they source Canadian lumber. This means higher prices on your [Cafe] Dulce and Starbucks because they source Japanese matcha powder and foreign coffee beans. This means higher prices on your Cava and Chipotle because they source Mexican avocados,” Oparaji said.

Sheyman, in return, claimed that the current trade status quo saw Americans as consumers rather than “producers and innovators.” Sheyman argued that Trump is taking America in a pragmatic, not isolationist, direction and that the loss of manufacturing jobs had decimated communities in America’s “heartland.”

“What Trump is trying to do is saying that we need to restructure the global trading system. Yes, it may take time, yes, it may harm some people in the short term. But the issue is, when you want to generate jobs, you have to make sure that people are playing by the rules,” Sheyman said. “The reason that we are doing tariffs is to protect manufacturing jobs across the country.”

Oparaji claimed that Trump was “underwater” in terms of polling, which prompted a heated discussion between him and Sheyman as to whether or not Trump was polling favorably in the most recent YouGov poll. YouGov’s most recent poll on Trump’s favorability was on April 6, where 44.7% of respondents viewed Trump favorably, 53.5% viewed him unfavorably and 1.9% “didn’t know.”

The final debate topic was Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Dakota Driemeyer, a junior majoring in legal studies, gave the Republican side. Driemeyer argued that the Department of Education, which was heavily defunded by DOGE, hindered children and removed parents from the conversation and later referred to USAID funding as “clear waste.”

“Death to bureaucracy. I believe that it is the fourth branch of government, and it is currently harpooning your civil liberties, your civil rights and it is costing us billions of dollars a year that could benefit everyone in this audience. It’s hurting the school children. It’s hurting literally everyone in this room,” Driemeyer said.

River Muench, a senior majoring in political science, provided the Democrat side to the DOGE debate. Muench argued that DOGE was an “opaque agency” and that education was doing poorly in the U.S. because the Department of Education was underfunded rather than overfunded, and that cuts would disproportionately impact Republican states.

“The biggest problem with DOGE is that it is an entirely undemocratic institution. It has always been the role of Congress to hold the power of the purse, and we now see that power being wielded by a single unchecked billionaire. This concentration of power in one person’s hands is dangerous and unaccountable,” Muench said.

The pair debated the merit of research defunded by DOGE. Driemeyer referenced “transgendering mice” as an example of excessive government spending, and Muench later claimed that the studies Driemeyer referenced were taken out of context.

On March 5, the White House released a memo claiming that over eight billion dollars had been allocated to “transgender experiments on mice.” Studies included “A Mouse Model to Test the Effects of Gender-affirming Hormone Therapy on HIV Vaccine-induced Immune Responses” and “Reproductive Consequences of Steroid Hormone Administration.”

A CNN fact check regarding Trump’s claims on federal money being used to “make mice transgender” stated “the studies were meant to figure out how these treatments might affect the health of humans who take them, not for the purpose of making mice transgender.”