Despite the rhetoric, the “border crisis” in the Rio Grande Valley is a relatively minor one, in terms of numbers.

The thousands of families and children traveling alone from Central America who have crossed the border into Texas in recent weeks present an emergency for federal immigration agents, who are ill prepared to care for so many children and are not allowed to send them back to their countries of origin. In the past year, the Border Patrol has apprehended nearly 40,000 unaccompanied minors in the Rio Grande Valley, up from 14,000 the year before.