According to Aristotle, a orator could frame any debate using three approaches: an appeal to logic, an appeal to credibility, or an appeal to emotion. All speakers and writers use the tripartite approach to rhetoric to varying degrees, and ultimately the audience judges their effectiveness in the context presented. In America, few topics are as hotly debated as undocumented immigration, and it can be difficult to navigate the partisan and often vitriolic rhetoric to reach a rational conclusion. Politicians frame the debate using elements of the American myth. While the evidence they present to support their conclusions may be factual, they necessarily omit the whole truth to present a partisan political front. Therefore, politicians rely predominantly on the emotional satisfaction of the reader or listener. And even the most scrupulous journalists – intended to convey objective facts to the public – are not free from personal biases, making the discussion even more convoluted. By analyzing three prominent voices in the immigration debate, US President Obama, journalist Sonia Nazario and Arizona Congressman JD Hayworth, we can evaluate the effectiveness of different rhetorical approaches depending on whether or not they reach the public expected. Nazario fulfills his journalistic raison d'etre by managing to maintain objectivity, while Obama and Hayworth as politicians manage to lie by omission in speeches and writings in order to pursue political goals and appease supporters. Sonia Nazario, herself an immigrant, was aware of the bitter debate over undocumented immigration through her work as a prominent Los Angeles journalist. The matter was brought to a head when his housekeeper's son arrived unannounced from Guatemala... middle of paper... straining America's immigration policy with nothing but words. Although after careful analysis we readers can more fully understand a problem and potentially arrive at more extensive patterns, we are left with the conclusion that social questions are rarely easy to answer. In our history, rhetoric has been transformative. The power of a well-crafted speech or essay to suddenly change the direction of discourse is very real. Even if we weren't there, we remember Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, Martin Luther King Jr.'s “I Have a Dream,” and John F. Kennedy's “Ich bin ein Berliner” because they were strokes of emotion, logic, and ethics. But sometimes these moments never come in a debate. Rhetoric is not always revolutionary; it can also be petty, inconsistent, or simply ignored. While logic demands answers and emotion is satiated by tidy conclusions, these rarely arrive.