The crisis of young migrants at the Texas border is a test of American values, one of those surprise exams that history now and then throws our way: Here are 57,000 helpless children. We are a nation of 300 million. Do we spit on them, or give them blankets and beds?

It is a test that many are flunking. In Arizona, no surprise, people are losing their minds. Hearing that migrant children were being sent to the town of Oracle, a county sheriff instigated a protest that ensnared a busload of bewildered YMCA campers. A disbarred former county attorney running for governor has an ad showing a Mexican flag swallowing up a map of Arizona and the slogan “Before It’s Too Late.”

The fever is hot in other states, too: graffiti denouncing “illeagles” in Maryland. A mayor whipping up a bus blockade in Murrieta, Calif. The call going out on YouTube for militias to get their weapons and boots, and man up to keep the little ones on their side of the river.

In Congress, which gave up on creating an orderly immigration system, Republicans are watching President Obama struggle to get a handle on the problem, and trying very hard not to help. Their reaction is one part panic, two parts glee. Representative Phil Gingrey of Georgia is warning the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about migrants carrying the Ebola virus. For Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas, it’s H1N1 flu virus. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is using the crisis to demand an end to President Obama’s program deferring deportations of young people known as Dreamers. There is no time like a crisis to blow up earlier efforts to fix the system’s failures.