That’s the reality I believe Powers and others continue to overlook. The number of Central American kids at the border has doubled every year since 2011. That figure is expected to nearly double again next year and could double again the year after that. Where does it end?

There are 30 million people living in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, the three countries from which the kids are now coming in relatively equal numbers. That means there are quite literally millions of teens who would arguably be better off living in the United States.

So let’s at least be honest about the scale of this situation. It makes little sense to behave as if we’re only talking about 60,000 kids when we know for a fact this is a problem that is escalating. The question isn’t whether we can accept 60,000 kids, it’s whether we can accept 600,000 or, potentially, several million.