Forms of appeal

Donald Trump’s immigration speech is constructed using all three forms of appeal – ethos (appeal to trust and authority), pathos (appeal to emotions), and logos (appeal to reason) – but the dominant ones are ethos and pathos.

Logos

Trump appeals to the audience’s reason by using logical arguments, facts, and statistical evidence to support his case.

For example, Donald Trump uses numerous statistics about illegal immigrants to argue in favor of certain measures he proposes to prevent illegal immigration.

Some examples are statistics about the crime rate of illegal immigrants which are meant to convince the audience that they pose a threat to American citizens' safety and security and cost the US government money:

A 2011 report from the Government Accountability Office found that illegal immigrants and other non-citizens in our prisons and jails together had around 25,000 homicide arrests to their names. On top of that, illegal immigration costs our country more than $113 billion dollars a year. (ll. 79-83)

Similar statistics mentioned are: “Since 2013 alone, the Obama Administration has allowed 300,000 criminal aliens to return back into U.S. communities” (ll. 165-166); “According to data provided to the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, between 9/11 and the end of  2014, at least 380 foreign-born individuals were convicted in terror cases inside the United States.” (ll. 238-241). These statistics help Trump link illegal immigrants with terrorism and also put some of the responsibility for their crimes on the Obama Administration.

Other data used by the speaker is meant to suggest that illegal immigrants are taking advantage of welfare benefits or that receiving a ref...