The fertility rate is 1.8 births per woman in the United States. This isn’t sustainable for our work force, which requires at least 2.1 births per woman. Immigrants bring fresh blood and our future workers. Immigrants as a whole contribute more in taxes than they use in benefits. They are a plus to the U.S. economy, meaning they create jobs. Their hard work lowers the cost of goods and services. They commit fewer crimes per capita than U.S. citizens. They are more likely to be victims of crime because they are vulnerable.

One of the values taught to children via cartoons in socialist USSR was to not turn your back on those in need; there is always room in your home. This is not a value the author of a recent letter is advocating regarding the families seeking asylum at our southern border (“Let’s leave the world better than we found it,” May 16). Families are fleeing Central American conditions the United States played a large role in creating.

How is it that socialist USSR was able to do what capitalist USA either can’t or chooses not to — 100% employment, no homelessness, everyone had medical care. Socialist USSR doubled the Russian life expectancy and greatly reduced illiteracy. Infant mortality was reduced 10 times.

The U.S. infant mortality rate is worse than Cuba even though the U.S. pays two times more per capita on medical care than many other western industrialized countries. In Russia, you don’t risk losing your home to catastrophic medical illness. Some of the most competitive countries have mixed socialist economies.

Socialism isn’t dictatorship. The freedom-loving U.S. incarceration rate is similar to the worst of Stalin’s gulag.

I think our anti-socialist perspectives are the product of an American multi-decade anti-Russian propaganda campaign. Would you believe that many Moldovans want to return to the Soviet era, because Moldova has crumbled and has no stability since Soviet collapse?

— Dave Pekarek