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We cannot ignore the horror of the border crisis, but we shouldn't ignore its real causes, either

We cannot ignore the horror of the border crisis, but we shouldn't ignore its real causes, either

A picture of a drowned father and daughter at the southern border has brought a great deal of left-wing attention to the border crisis.

The tragic photo shows a migrant from El Salvador and his 2-year-old daughter washed up on the shore of the Rio Grande River after trying to cross the border into the United States.

A Vox writer called the image "the true face of the Trump administration’s approach to immigration, the physical embodiment of the nativism that animates it."

"Trump is responsible for these deaths," tweeted presidential candidate Robert "Beto" O'Rourke.

On Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., took the photo to the Senate floor and blamed President Trump for the pair's deaths, calling his actions on the crisis a "whirlwind of incompetence leading to pictures like this."

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, Vt., said that the image is "one painful example of so many that demonstrate the reckless disregard for basic humanity that have come from Trump's policies."

Sanders, of course, also called the border crisis "artificial" in January when calling for an end to the federal government partial shutdown over the border crisis.

In reality, since Schumer and Sanders' January allegations, the administration has been dealing with month after month after month of record numbers of border apprehensions and changing demographics driven by a combination of what National Review editor Rich Lowry describes as "bizarre asylum rules" and inadequate security at the U.S.-Mexico border. These have left enforcement agencies grossly overburdened.

Meanwhile, it has been almost two months since the administration requested emergency border funding to address the ongoing crisis, and a supplemental measure addressing it only passed the House Tuesday evening (where funding bills have to begin, per the Constitution.) That spending package, however, contains no funding for additional border security measures.

It's also important to keep in mind, congressional Republicans and the Trump administration started trying to address the asylum policies that created the current crisis over a year ago.

And, in case anyone forgot, this isn't America's first crisis of this nature. The journey north was still dangerous and the asylum incentives were similar five years ago, the swell of minors from Central America claiming refugee status as Unaccompanied Alien Children got so bad that then-President Barack Obama had to warn Central American parents to stop sending their kids here.

"Do not send your children to the borders," Obama warned. "If they do make it, they'll get sent back; more importantly, they might not make it."

Look, it's right to feel pangs of horror and sadness upon seeing a picture of a drowned father and daughter. It's right to say it's bad when kids don't have soap and toothbrushes at detention facilities. These are objectively bad things, but we cannot pretend away the factors that actually created these conditions.

The humanitarian crisis at our southern border is indeed horrific. It was horrific before this picture was taken. It was horrific before the detention centers became as crowded as they currently are. That's why it's so important to fix this crisis the right way and prevent others of its kind from happening again.

You can't fix a problem when you won't admit what's causing it, and as long as our current asylum and security problems persist, this crisis simply won't go away.

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