I am responding to Nancy Chesley’s May 26 letter, “Why does Brunswick keep accepting asylum seekers?”

The Center for Immigration Studies is an anti-immigrant hate group, per the Southern Poverty Law Center, so quoting them in your spurious argument against immigrants is not a good look. The simple truth is, while immigrants need help in the beginning, learning how to function in a new community and before they are allowed to get jobs, they will bring us far more than they ever cost. Supporting immigrants who arrive does not “lure” them away from starvation and suffering. These are just human beings who want the same opportunities for a better life that anyone would want.

And while Maine’s youths often go off to college elsewhere and don’t return, these people want to be here and they want to work. If we welcome them, our lives and our communities will only be enriched. And yes, once they are allowed to work, their taxes will also go to help others in our community who need help and aren’t able to work.

Let’s show them our best side and welcome them in, the way you would want to be welcomed if you were in their shoes. That is the universe in which it makes sense: a charitable and humane universe. To circle the wagons to keep out “others” and only care for “our own” is just another word for bigotry.

Veronica Garrett
Bath