Our Brave New World Of Immigration Essay

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This Generation’s Great Migration In recent discussions, the topic of immigration and the fundamental question of what is to be done with immigration? has been circulating in many american homes today, especially the closer we get to election day. As David Cole puts it in his essay Five Myths about Immigration “But just as in the 1850’s, passion, misinformation, and shortsighted fear often substitute for reason, fairness, and human dignity in today’s immigration debates”(185). Despite misconceptions of immigrants, Cole believes that immigrants positively affect society in several ways. In addition, Cole challenges and questions the beliefs of others in his essay. Whereas, Victor Davis Hanson’s essay Our Brave New World of Immigration focuses …show more content…

In Our Brave New World Immigration, Victor Davis Hanson focuses on the symptoms of illegal immigration such as crime, assimilation, and economic impact. Hanson begins his essay by narrating a image of Mexican laborers on a dark spring morning, he continues by describing an accident near his house, Hasnon himself writes, “Not far from my home, one of these vans had crossed the white line down the middle of the road and hit a pickup head on. Perhaps the can had blown a bald tire. Perhaps the driver was intoxicated.”(195) In other words, Hanson believes that incidents such as the one in his story are no longer uncommon because he believes there is a direct correlation between crime and the influx of illegal immigration. Hanson’s claim that there is a correlation between crime and illegal immigration rests upon the questionable assumption that all the perpetrators are illegal immigrants. Additionally, he assumes that everyone who looks like an immigrant, is illegal. It is unfair to assume that crime is a direct result of immigration. Hanson also argues that immigrants are unwilling to assimilate. Hanson states, “Today we ask too little of too many immigrants. We apparently don’t care whether they come legally or learn english - or how they fare when …show more content…

In David Cole’s essay Five Myths about Immigration, Cole has a moreorless logical argument, with plenty of studies and facts. Being that, Cole has a very convincing argument on why immigrants are advantageous economically, culturally, and improve the overall standard of living. Alternatively, in the essay Our Brave New World Immigration Victor Davis Hanson describes his personal experience with dealing with immigrants, as a consequence the essay is very biassed. As previously stated, I believed that Cole’s essay Five Myths about immigration, was more convincing and better organized than Victor Davis Hanson’s essay Our Brave New World

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