Blog Stage 4

On March 8th, 2019, Rachel Bovard wrote the article Commentary: When Will Congress Do Something About The Border?, for the blog Texas Scorecard. Rachel Bovard is a Senior Director of Policy at the Conservative Partnership Institute. The CPI is an organization that provides training and education to help citizens, congressional staff, and members of Congress. Rachel Bovard is a credible author.

Bovard begins her article by saying that when the Senate disproves Trumps declare for a national emergency "they will be doing so in the face of statistics that say otherwise", immediately she is drawing the reader in to be curious about the statistics. She continues to inform the reader of the statistics on the number of apprehensions at the border in the month of February, the number of adults in immigration custody, and the number of families that are apprehended at the border. After every single statistic, she used  phrases similar to: "the highest number ever." After reading this article for the first time I was shocked by the statistics, like Bovard intended, because using statistics puts it into a perspective of how many families are being affected.

Next, she talks about the role of the asylum laws and how if they claim to have a "credible fear" of being tortured, they can not be deported, and have to stay in the United States until they are taken in front of an immigration judge, which can sometimes take years. Bovard goes into detail of how this can be falsified, and the statistics of how many claims there are and how many later admitted to falsely admitting.

In this article, Bovard's intended audience is border wall supporters. Her overall goal of the article is to make the readers fired up and want Congress to do something about the border wall. Bovard does a good job at influencing the readers thoughts by using statistics, but some of her wording can cause confusion to the reader.

Stage 3

On February 18, 2019, Senator Ted Cruz wrote the commentary MAKE 'EL CHAPO' PAY FOR THE BORDER WALL on the Texas Insider. Ted Cruz is one of the two Republican Texas senators. Senator Cruz main goal for the article is to convince the reader that the famous drug lord El Chapo's seized drug money should go towards building the Texas/ Mexico border wall. Since Trump's election there have been many different theory's on how to pay for the border wall: Mexico will pay for it, the state of Texas will use their rainy day fund, the taxpayers will pay for it, and now Cruz's theory to use the seized drug money. Cruz begins his argument by starting off with a phrase that draws in the reader's attention: "there a solution here that secures the border and won't cost the taxpayers one dime." Cruz throwing in "you will not have to pay for it", could make some people who are on the fence about the border wall, want the border wall because it is costing them nothing. Cruz goes on to make El Chapo seem like a terrible person and we should want to take his money by telling the reader, how many people he killed (including "innocent teachers visiting and law enforcement"), the number of drugs he brought in, and the addiction and misery he caused. The way Cruz has structured his article makes the reader not care about the sentencing that El Chapo gets instead its focused on here's a terrible person who caused pain and misery to citizens of the U.S. lets take his money to use it for a border wall. El Chapos seized money is about $14 billion dollars. Cruz article is set up in a way to make the reader want to build a border wall with the seize $14 billion.

Blog Stage 2

On Monday, February 11, 2019, Asher Price wrote the article Texas Republicans to propose tapping rainy day fund for border wall for The Statesman. In the article, Price informed the readers that some Texas state representatives who are wanting to use Texas' "rainy day fund" to help support the border wall. This means Texas would spend $2.5 billion to go towards "to design, test, construct and install physical barriers, roads, and technology along the international land border between the state of Texas and Mexico to prevent illegal crossings in all areas." The fund that is referenced to as the rainy day fund is Texas's state emergency savings account. This account is used for small and large emergencies such as natural disasters in the state of Texas. You should read this article so you are better informed on what on the border wall movements in the state of Texas. 

Blog Stage One

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