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The Trump immigration crisis goes in and out of the headlines, but it has never ended. Here’s a quick guide to understanding it:

The administration’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents at the Mexican border officially ended in June. A recent “60 Minutes” report concluded that the number of separated and detained children could top 5,000 — twice the number the White House lists . An unknown number remain in custody.

Many of the guards who implemented the policy continue to suffer from shame and guilt, writes Claudia Kolker, who volunteered in South Texas as an interpreter for separated children, in The Houston Chronicle. “What I saw at the border was far worse than I imagined, not only because of what these families experienced, but because of what had happened to the American workers guarding them,” she writes.

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And the administration may have covertly revived the policy. ProPublica’s Ginger Thompson reported on Tuesday that the federal government was separating children “using vague or unsubstantiated allegations of wrongdoing or minor violations against the parents, including charges of illegally re-entering the country , as justification.”

In the meantime, another humanitarian crisis along the border has begun. Last weekend, immigration agents lobbed tear gas into Mexico to deter members of the migrant caravan from crossing the border or seeking asylum. Tear gas “has a particularly harsh effect on children because of their weaker respiratory systems,” explains HuffPost’s Angelina Chapin.

The Trump administration does not actually seem to be trying to discourage turmoil at the border. It is nearing a deal with Mexico to keep asylum seekers on the Mexican side of the border, which could add to the sense of chaos. “Trump’s border policy has squeezed asylum seekers at both ends,” writes Vox’s Dara Lind. “Officials stress that migrants ought to present themselves legally at ports of entry, while asylum seekers at ports are forced to wait days or weeks for entry.”

All of which raises an obvious — if disturbing — question: Does the administration think it benefits politically from repeated crises along the border? Trump certainly seems to think so. “Those pictures are very bad for the Democrats,” he told The Post on Tuesday, referring to recent images of migrants.

Trump’s approach to the southern border is one of the great moral failings of his presidency. But there are no easy answers to this problem, either. The United States can't simply open its borders to anyone who wants to enter the country; doing so would spark a different kind of crisis, with thousands upon thousands of people streaming into this country. So what would be a better approach than Trump’s — or an open border?

My colleague Tom Friedman argues that Democrats should both promote border security while also addressing the factors — including climate change and insufficient economic aid — that drive migrant flows. In The Washington Post, George P. Shultz, the former secretary of state, and Pedro Aspe, the former Mexico treasury secretary, suggest that international groups should do more to improve living standards in Central America. In The Atlantic, Reihan Salam argues for experimental “charter city” economic development zones in Central America that could provide the opportunity that many of the migrants seek.

For a longer version of Salam’s conservative take on immigration, check out this Q&A between him and James Pethokoukis.

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