What, exactly, is President Obama going to do about the flood of unaccompanied children illegally crossing the southwestern border into the United States? So far, the White House has given many clues but few details, and when the president took to the Rose Garden to make a statement Monday, he spent nearly all his time talking not about the growing crisis but about his plan to make an end run around Congress on the broader issue of immigration reform.

There are moves the president could make that would greatly reduce the flood of children from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador into Texas. But passing a comprehensive immigration reform bill is not one of them.