Asylum seekers should be welcome, helped

In the current controversy over migration across the U.S.-Mexico border, it’s important to note that it’s not illegal to enter the United States seeking asylum.

According to U.S. border control officials, illegal migration from Mexico and Central America has been declining over the last two years, while the number of asylum seekers from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela has been dramatically rising, from about 23,000 such border stops in August of 2021 to about 56,000 in August of this year. What the latter three countries have in common is that they are controlled by leftwing dictatorships.

Americans, and especially Republicans, have always in the past embraced refugees from communist dictatorships. After the Hungarian revolt of 1956, the United States under Republican President Eisenhower welcomed about 30,000 Hungarians to America. Since Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba in January of 1959, the United States has hosted over 1.3 million Cuban immigrants by 2015. After the Vietnam War, two million Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians were resettled in this country during the 20 years following the fall of Saigon. Republican President Ford declared that “to ignore the refugees in their hour of need would be to repudiate the values we cherish as a nation of immigrants.”

Sadly, those values have been decisively repudiated by the Republican governors of Texas and Florida.

JAMES C. TODD

Ashberry Trail