More than a few Republican graybeards are panicking about how the rise of Donald Trump is pulling at the seams of the GOP’s big tent. However, the Republican establishment itself has played a big role in creating this particular Frankenstein’s monster.

In September 2014, I found myself in Lexington, Nebraska, population 10,230. I was at a campaign stop with the soon-to-be-elected junior senator from Nebraska, and it seemed as if voters in this small town wanted to talk about one issue in particular. Just a few weeks earlier—right before school was to start—the federal government had showed up in Lexington and dropped off 11 unaccompanied Central American children who had been scooped up in the recent border crisis. The handoff was done with little warning and without any apparent concern about how the folks in a small town with a small budget and limited resources were going to take care of these kids. The Obama White House’s lawless immigration policy had created an avoidable humanitarian crisis, and heartland voters were being given no choice but to deal with the consequences.