A NEW WAY TO MEASURE THE BORDER CRISIS. It is sometimes said that the crisis of illegal crossers on the U.S.-Mexico border “can’t get any worse.” Well, it can. And now it has.

Previously unheard-of numbers of migrants are crossing into the United States, confident that they, or at least most of them, will be allowed to stay in the country, whether they have a legitimate claim to asylum or not. (The vast majority do not.) Border Patrol forces are overwhelmed, as are the private organizations that assist the immigrants with the aim of keeping them in the U.S.