What a border crisis looks like

In the real world, a migrant influx will test even an administration more favorably inclined toward immigration. The reason that the Left can’t keep their viral images straight — often misattributing to Trump photos of kids in steel-cage holding pens during the Obama years — is that this is a similar crisis to the one Obama faced in his second term, with similar challenges.

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A viral video of a Justice Department lawyer arguing before a panel of judges last week that kids don’t need toothbrushes and soap to meet the standard for “safe and sanitary” detention under the so-called Flores settlement has caused outrage. But few have stopped to note that the underlying case had to do with a district court finding that the Obama administration in 2015 was in material breach of the Flores standard (or that the DOJ lawyer was offering a technical legal argument — not a defense of mistreating kids).

All that said, once these migrants are under our care, it is our responsibility to make sure they are treated as humanely as possible. The border needs more resources. The Trump administration has been asking Congress to pass a funding package, and it should do so forthwith. To address the root cause of the crisis, it should also change the bizarre asylum rules that have forced us to release family units from Central America into the country, creating an incentive for more to come.

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