At border, grim realities of crisis collide with 2020 campaign politics

Homeland Security officials thought they finally were getting a handle on the crisis at the Mexico border, after warning for months that agents and holding cells were beyond “the breaking point.”

The record surge of Central American families has started to abate. The Mexican government has launched a broad crackdown after a deal with President Trump. And in a rare example of bipartisan action, lawmakers last week approved $4.6 billion in supplemental funding, most of it to improve care for minors who arrive without parents.

Then the border crisis collided with the 2020 presidential campaign, putting the still-grim realities of U.S. border enforcement at the emotional core of the Democratic primary.

Since last week’s Democratic debates, candidates and prominent lawmakers have focused their attention on distressing photos of a father and daughter drowned in the Rio Grande, accounts from the government’s own internal watchdog of squalid conditions in border cells, and revelations of denigrating and explicit postings on social media by U.S. agents.

Meanwhile, some Democrats are questioning the basic legal underpinnings of U.S. immigration enforcement and challenging the long-held consensus that a robust detention and deportation system is necessary to prevent an even bigger flood of illegal immigrations into the United States.