Despite America being a nation of immigrants and despite a history of successfully incorporating waves of immigrants into American society, misinformation and fear often distort public debate regarding immigration policy. Fear and misinformation often create prejudice against immigrants, creating anti-immigrant sentiment for new groups of immigrants arriving in America. In ôFive Myths about Immigration,ö David Cole uses ethical appeal, emotional appeal, and appeals to reason to demonstrate that this prejudice is largely based on myths about immigrants that are simply untrue.
Cole makes a number of ethical appeals in ôFive Myths about Immigrationö to prove his point that todayÆs immigration debates are often fueled by passion, misinformation, and fear in place of reason. Cole enhances his credibility by providing statistics from respected authorities to demonstrate that one myth, that America is being overrun with immigrants, is patently untrue. Using the U.S. Census, Cole (190) notes that the percentage of foreign-born people in the U.S. in 1990 is only 8 percent of the population, compared to 15 percent of the population from 1870-1920. Citing the Urban Institute, the Council of Economic Advisers, and former New York Governor Mario Cuomo as authorities, Cole undermines a number of myths that fuel anti-immigration sentiment through ethical appeals to respected authorities. For instance, instead of taking jobs from U.S. citizens, Cole (191) uses CuomoÆs report that immigrants ôown more than 400,000 companies in New Yorkö which create thousands of jobs and add $3.5 billion to the stateÆs economy annually.
In order to show that immigration policy aimed at denying public services to undocumented immigrants is more costly in the long run, Cole resorts to an emotional appeal. Cole appeals to the emotions by maintaining that many immigrants are denied basic needs in U.S. society, including
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