Legislators who’ve been dragging their feet on immigration reform hardly need another excuse for doing nothing, but the recent influx of young children across our borders is certainly making things more difficult. Anti-reformers claim the sudden increase in illegal border crossings by unaccompanied minors — about 48,000 so far this fiscal year — is proof that the border is far from secure. Pro-reformers point to the humanitarian crisis that has developed with thousands of children being held in holding pens not fit for hardened criminals, much less kids. But while the two factions engage in finger-pointing, positions in both camps harden and nothing gets done.

First, it’s important to understand what is actually happening, mostly along the 1,200-mile border Texas shares with Mexico. For months, youngsters, some as young as 4 years old, having been crossing into the United States in the hopes they will be allowed to stay. According to recent reports, these kids walk right up to border agents as soon as they see them and turn themselves in. They’ve been instructed to do so, sometimes by the criminal “coyotes” who extort hundreds, even thousands, of dollars from the kids’ parents to get them across the border.