The Vermont Tradition: Welcome or Scare?
The Letter to the Editor below was submitted to news outlets across the state by the VT-NH Asylum Support Network earlier this week. However, they found an inaccuracy, which has been removed. Here we are publishing the updated, correct letter:
Recently, an asylum seeker family was detained by Customs & Border Patrol near the Vermont-Canada border. After 30 hours’ detention with little to eat or drink and nowhere to sleep, the wife and three small children were released. The husband is in Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, his fate unclear despite his and his family’s asylum case being in process. This story is frightening immigrants across Vermont.
Individuals persecuted in their own countries based on race, gender, sexual orientation, political affiliation, or religion have an internationally-recognized right to seek asylum elsewhere, including in the US. To ignore asylum seekers’ plight at this perilous moment risks not only their safety but also our better selves.
The majority of Vermonters’ ancestors came here to start new lives. Many of them were escaping the kind of persecution that asylum seekers flee today. The commonalities between our families’ histories and today’s asylum seekers prompt us to ask, “What if our forebears had been barred from the US, or kicked out without due process? Who would have stood up for them?”
Looking out for those in trouble is a Vermont tradition. Not that long ago, it was commonplace for folks away from home to leave their doors unlocked in case a wayfarer needed shelter overnight. By keeping our communities open and safe for asylum seekers we honor and extend this spirit of neighborliness in our time.
(The poem Open Door by Katie Spring, was used with permission. Katie is one of many artists participating in the 2025 March Arts Marathon.)