Heaven ForbidImmigration has always been a much-discussed topic. There are many who think that borders should be tighter, or that deportation should be forced, or that illegal immigration is a serious threat to America. On the other side of the proverbial coin, there are many who think that limiting immigration in any way is cruel and un-American, or that if you make it to American soil you should be allowed to stay. John Tierney, playwright and New York Times columnist, falls, along with me, into the latter category of immigration advocates. John Tierney expressed his views in an essay titled Ángels in America, published in the New York Times in April 2006. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Tierney weaves his readers a story full of pathos, of a hard-working Mexican immigrant named Ángel Espinoza. Tierney identifies Espinoza with Tierney's grandfather. They are both first-generation immigrants who left the farms, took low-paying jobs and worked their way up to better positions. Both married American-born citizens. Tierney discusses Espinoza's citizenship, or lack thereof: Espinoza, unlike Tierney's grandfather, was denied a green card because he had been deported in the past. Tierney uses this as a starting point to discuss the difference between previous immigration policies and current immigration policies. “In 1911 there were no quotas for Europeans or most other immigrants, even though, relative to the population, there were more immigrants coming and living here than there are today. If America could absorb my grandfather, why keep Espinoza out?”(622-623) he asks. Tierney discusses an oft-repeated anti-immigration argument: Because Mexico is so close, Mexicans do not assimilate and “run the risk of becoming an underclass living in linguistically isolated ghettos.” (623) Tierney compares this topic to the story of Espinoza and those whose lives resemble his. I personally agree with Tierney's apparent pro-immigration stance, but his presentation has some problems. First, it never clearly states any claim or position. You can establish that he is pro-immigration due to his support and empathy for Espinoza, but he never comes out and says nothing about immigration. In a way this works in his favor: it makes him seem moderate and without opinions. In other ways he disappoints him: he never makes his beliefs known, nor are his claims listened to, and so he falls a little flat. It is unclear exactly what Tierney is trying to persuade them to believe, and so he fails to convince his readers of anything. Second, Tierney's essay is almost entirely based on pathos. His barely discernible argument is based entirely on whether you feel sorry for Espinoza. It presents only one statistic, in the twelfth paragraph: that eighty percent of third-generation immigrants are predominantly English. Tierney states that "if you look at immigrant studies, you find that the typical story is much more like Espinoza's."(623) It's obvious he's read these studies, if he bothers to cite them, so where are they ? What are the numbers? Tierney does not provide them, nor does he mention where he might have found his information. His essay completely lacks ethics. Third, Tierney's argument is based on Espinoza's story. Rather than show economic studies of immigrant families and their wages, Tierney provides a single.