Donald Trump's Animosity Towards Immigrants

Donald Trump is known for his anti-immigration views. He is an advocate for closing U.S. borders and has stated his dislike for immigrants a numerous amount of times. Unsurprisingly, he targets immigrants in his speech during the launch of his presidential campaign. Trump utilizes pathos in his spiel to rally Americans against immigrants.

Trump begins with stating that the "U.S has become a dumping ground for everybody else's problems." Trump is hoping to turn Americans against immigrants by using pathos to evoke anger and a sense of unity from his audience. The wording of this sentence deems the U.S. as weak, and suggests that other countries are violating America by "dumping" immigrants into U.S. territory. The rhetoric used here is effective because it implies that other nations view the U.S. as inferior which causes Americans to unite on a common ground of hatred. Trump then further says that the immigrants entering the U.S., from countries like Mexico, are not "good people." He states,"They're [Mexico] not sending their best...They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists..." Trump again uses pathos to evoke emotions of fear and anger. Fear of drugs, crime and rape corrupting American communities, when in reality, Trump's statement is not true and is a generalization. He hopes American's will view immigrants as a burden rather than a positive addition to American society. He goes on even further with his pathos method, by stating, "It's [immigrants] coming from more than Mexico. It's coming from all over South and Latin America and it's coming probably from the Middle East." Trump is hoping to evoke even more fear from his audience through his last statement. Given the U.S.'s rocky relationship with many Middle Eastern countries and the looming threat of ISIS, Trump hopes to scare American's into believing that immigrants are terrorists and are a threat to America.