             Illegal immigrants crossing the border from Mexico into the United States has been an ongoing problem for years. In the article "Splitting the Difference on Illegal Immigration," Peter Skeyes uses logos to present the ongoing issue on the southern border with illegal immigration. It has been crippling America by taking jobs away from those who were legally born and raised here. The article chosen to write this paper uses logos throughout to inform Americans of the impact that illegal immigration has on the economy and on each of us. The author uses statistics and other logical fallacies to help provide information to the people of the United States on how the illegal immigrants are affecting our country. The author gives all of this information to the reader in hope of correcting all of the misleading stereotypes that have been attached to illegals crossing the border. He suggests a call to action and wants people to use logic and facts to help come up with a solution to the illegal immigration crisis.

             The author uses logos throughout his work, but he also has moments of pathos and ethos. He refers to pathos when he discusses the families that are broken apart due to the deportation of one family member or more. The author shows how often illegal immigrants worry about one of their loved ones being deported at any moment. The author also has ethos due to his research and many credible works that are cited.

            Although illegal immigration may seem to cause only negative effects, there are some positive outcomes of it, even though they may not outweigh the bad. Believe it or not, illegal immigrants do help our economy by taking some of the harder jobs that a lot of people would not want to do. Most Illegal immigrants come to the United States in search of work. Of all the illegal immigrants in the United states, about 80% of them are Latino, adding up to almost 11 million illegal people in the country. About 93% of the men who come in illegally are in the labor force, compared to that of only 58% of undocumented women who are in the labor force. As of 2008,illegal immigrants made up about 25% of farm workers, 27% of housekeepers and maids, 28% of dishwashers, 37% of drywalls, and 40% of brick masons. Many of the jobs that illegals take have little to no job benefits at all. That is why it is not surprising when a census in 2008 showed that about 60% of illegal immigrants do not have health insurance. There are about 5.8 million illegal males compared to about 4.2 million illegal females in the country. According to statistics provided by Pew, about half of the illegal aliens coming into the country are men who have neither children nor a spouse.

        The author uses logos to present to the reader that the number of illegal immigrants in the United States are crippling the economy, job welfare, and ecologically. The number of illegal immigrants has increased steadily until its peak in 2007, and has gradually declined to about 11.1 million people, a still very significant number. If something is not done about this problem the United States will continue to suffer. The logos and statistics used in this article show the negative effects that this is having on the United States.

        Even though it seems that we can add up the statistics on illegal immigration, it can become complicated. For those who had illegal parents but were born in America, are they legally citizens or are the still illegal immigrants due to their parents? The number of illegals could go up to as much as 15 million if you count the children under 18 who live at home with at least one illegal parent. 

          Another issue with illegal immigration would be how law enforcement along the border treats the people who are trying to cross illegally. Some of the people can be well-trained hard-working men who are just trying to protect our country and keep it great. On the other hand, there are the power-hungry and racist officers who want nothing more than to see every last Latino out of our country forever.

         As most Americans look at their country with great hope and pride and use the term "patriotism" strongly within our borders, it seems that illegal aliens who cross from the southern border have more hope in our country than the legal citizens who are currently living here. 35% of illegals said that they were happy with the way that the country was going compared to 25% of legal Americans. It seems that illegal immigrants put high hopes on the freedom that comes with living in the United States. Anywhere seems better than the country they are trying to escape from and sometimes they might have a blurred perception on what the United States really does have to offer.

         Though it seems that almost Latinos enter into the United States illegally, there are those who come in through the use of a green card and live here legally. A certain number of immigrants are allowed into the United States each year, and once that number has been reached, the remaining people trying to immigrate must wait till the next year until they can once again try and enter the country legally. The United States allows around 26,000 immigrants per country to enter into America legally each year. That may seem like a lot, but the influx of immigrants trying to enter from the southern border exceeds that number immensely. In 2011, 13.5% of the people who were granted legal citizenship were from Mexico, 8.2% were from china, and 6.5% were from India.

        The ongoing crisis of illegal immigration across our borders is one that does not seem to be stopping anytime soon. Peter Skeyes writes many reason why this is true and uses logos to convince the reader of that. Numbers may have decreased slightly over the years but it will be a while before the United States can get the whole situation under control. The effects of the 11 million undocumented immigrants pose a threat of social challenges to our nation and also to the immigrants themselves. The author proposes a solution to the immigration problem towards the end of the writing. They claim we should be exploring taking immigrants and providing them with a permanent non-citizen residential status which would allow them to stay in the United States but would not fully give them all the rights that a legal citizen may have.

