Critique on Europe’s Immigration Crisis Immigration seems to be a continual problem for nations of the world. It is a hot button issue for politicians, and is often used as a fear tactic to push political agendas. Currently, the immigration crisis in Syria is posing the issue of how to handle the outflow of the estimated over 4 million refugees (“Seven factors”, 2015) fleeing from Syria due to the terrorist group ISIS. The major concerns that come with so many people crossing borders are how to house and feed them, and then how to acquire the means to help them. In the article To Understand Europe’s Immigration Crisis, Dr. Akbar Ahmed describes the struggles of 16 year old Gambian Ahmedu and his escape from poverty and his quest to reunite…show more content… Ahmed uses the story of Ahmedu as a way to evoke pathos in the reader. Pulling on the heartstrings of the reader is one of the sure ways to make the reader care about the plights of others. Pathos is effective for persuading the reader to follow your argument, but the way in which an author emphasizes pathos is what decides if the author is credible or not. Dr. Ahmed did this fairly well by calling on the story of Ahmedu. However, he only told one story, and not the story of multiple people. The problem with this is that he proclaims that every immigrant experiences what it is like to lurk “in the shadows of Europe,” (Ahmed, 2015) but only provides Ahmedu’s testimony for the support for that. The unfortunate thing about personal experience is that it can only speak for the individual. Though many people may experience the same situations, it is unlikely that every person who is an immigrant went through the terrible experiences that Ahmedu went though. For instance, Ahmedu spoke to Dr. Ahmed about his experience with Italian police “head-butt[ing] him for no apparent reason” (Ahmed, 2015). This experience is unique to people of color in Italy. Italy has long been known as an extremely racist country, and that is shown even in recent history. When Cecil Kyenge became “the first black cabinet member in the country’s history,” she was told that she looked like an “orangutan” and had “bananas thrown at her” (Marinelli, 2015) all due to her race. Italy is not Europe’s pride when it comes to racial equality. The triumphant racism in Italy shapes Ahmedu’s experience in ways that an immigrant with a lighter complexion might have. In my own experience, Italians are warm hearted and trusting people, but when I went to their country, I was giving them my money, and I am more lightly colored than most Italians; whereas Ahmedu asked for their generosity and their hospitality with nothing to give in return but cleaning the church that he took shelter in all while being