The Immigration Pilicy (In class essay#2) with Reflections

Tsung Cheng Lin
English 1B
In-class-essay#2
05/26/10

The Immigration Policy

Immigration policy is changing every year in America. Many immigrants immigrate to America legally while some immigrants immigrate to America illegally. Are those immigrants good or harmful for America? How can we solve the problem of illegal immigration? In the article “Revamp Immigration” by Editors, Contra Costa Times, the author talks about the immigration between Mexico and America. The author is trying to show why America and Mexico should work together to solve the problem of illegally immigration. There are some good points in the article but there are also some fallacies. The fallacies seem to appear in the article are appear to pity, slippery slope, hasty generalization, and begging the question.

The first fallacy seems to appear at the very beginning of the article is appeal to pity. In first and two paragraphs, the author is saying that the presidents of American and Mexican is trying to solve the illegally immigration problem due to the deaths in Texas who suffocated while trying to cross the American border illegally. The author uses the frightening statistics by showing that 19 people were killed by that tragedy to win sympathy from readers to convince them. The point is not persuasive because the author didn’t mention how this tragedy led to the issue of illegally immigration.

The next fallacies seem to appear in the third paragraph are appeal to pity and hasty generalization. Again, the author is trying to use the tragedy of 9/11, which killed thousands and thousands of people, at the beginning of third paragraph to get sympathy from readers. He is showing that after the tragedy, the immigration policy and relationship between Mexico and America has changed. But the author didn’t write any information about how America decided to change the policy and what has changed. Also he says, “The terrorist attacks changed the way the United States viewed all foreigners as potential terrorists” (98). Here the hasty generalization seems to appear. He uses the word “all”, which is trying to conclude the small sample to a larger population. One way to avoid this is that he can use the word “some” or “many” instead of “all”.

Another hasty generalization appears in the fourth paragraph. In this paragraph, the author is saying that those undocumented workers help us a lot. He states, “We see them (undocumented workers) every day and we benefit from their labor” (98). It seems to be a hasty generalization because it might be only those undocumented workers who work hard. But there are still some bad undocumented workers who sell drugs and sexes.

The other fallacies that seem to appear are slippery slope and begging the question. In the paragraphs from five to nice, the ideas seem to jump around going to from this point to another point without any connection. It is a slippery slope because the idea jumps from the poor economy of Mexico to how much they have sent back, and then jumping to a new policy. What the author lacks is the supports and evidences to prove his ideas. He only uses a 2002 report that shows how much money the Mexicans have sent back to their families but without any other supports and what the report came from.

This article contains many fallacies, appear to pity, slippery slope, hasty generalization, and begging the question. There are also some small fallacies in the article. Although some of the points might make sense in some way, he lacks to mention the information and supports. Unless the author states more facts and evidence, this article is not persuasive and would convince no one.