Editor, Gazette-Journal:

This is the time of year we like to count our blessings and think over our resolutions for the New Year coming up.  

In the category of blessings, I am grateful for your editorial of Dec. 3, titled “America is better” in which you remind us of the values that are our greatest blessings as Americans. We enjoy Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Why us? In most cases we are the lucky ones because our ancestors had the gumption and the wisdom to immigrate to the United States. We are a nation of immigrants. The Statue of Liberty stands as a beacon to remind us (about 95 percent of us, anyway) that our ancestors were among the tired and poor and those longing to be free. Many patriotic Americans have lost their lives to protect the liberties and values that we hold dear. They did not die to protect the promotion of hatred, bigotry, racism and fear as tools for demagogues with a “win-at-all-costs” strategy.

Another blessing I found recently in your Opinion section was Mary Montague’s letter in which she expressed her wish for our political leaders and office holders to seek ways to offer the freedom and opportunity we enjoy in our country to the Syrian refugees who have in desperation fled their own homeland. 

My resolution for the New Year of 2016 is to do what I can to support an open immigration policy, especially in regard to the Syrian refugee families.

Readers may recall the desperate plight of many thousands of Cambodian refugees in the late 1970s when Pol Pot, an extremist Communist terrorist leader, reigned over the killing fields of Cambodia. Thousands of Cambodian refugees were trapped in refugee camps in Thailand for years. They fled Cambodia in 1979 to save their lives and protect family members who had somehow survived the holocaust visited upon them by a ruthless zealot. Churches and civic groups in the United States provided support for many Cambodian refugees to enter the United States under the Department of Immigration’s policy of Humanitarian Parole that was utilized to make it possible to override the usual quota system.

Gloucester County residents assisted several Cambodian refugee families as they started new lives here in the 1980s. My husband and I were fortunate to have the chance to be involved in that effort. We learned that even under the policy of Humanitarian Parole, the wait could be agonizingly long as Immigration officials examined every aspect of the applicants’ history. Most of the Cambodian refugees had lost every shred of identifying documents when they were driven from their homes into labor camps in 1975. In spite of that history, the process was extremely thorough. Indeed, in the case of one family, it took the Immigration officials seven years to resolve some minor discrepancies on the applications. I can vouch for the rigor of the vetting process in regard to refugees. When that family finally arrived in Gloucester in 1990, there was rejoicing all around. That is a good memory, and it was a proud moment for Gloucester County and for our country.

Roberta Ray

Gloucester, Va.