Now that Democrats have stopped calling the untenable situation at America’s southern border a “manufactured crisis” and recognized it as a “humanitarian crisis,” perhaps a bipartisan solution can be found to at least one aspect of the problem: the continuing flow of unaccompanied children across the border.

But we shouldn’t hold our breath. The left — activists, the media and Dem politicians — are more interested in badgering the Trump administration than solving the crisis.

On Thursday, Brian S. Hastings, chief of law-enforcement operations at Customs and Border Protection, testified before the House Judiciary Committee.

“While many factors drive illegal migration,” he said, “the rise in migration is, in part, a consequence of the gaps created by layers of laws, judicial rulings and policies related to the treatment of minors. Unfortunately, this well-intentioned mosaic of legal requirements helped create the conditions underlying the humanitarian crisis at our southwest border today by providing clear incentives to attempt to cross our southwest border illegally, with a child.”

Put another way, America has been encouraging children to make the treacherous journey from their home countries to the United States.

“Families belong together” read the activist signs. Perhaps additional signage can be provided to explain how we keep families together when tens of thousands of children keep flowing across our border, often traveling alone or accompanied by people other than their relatives.

The numbers keep rising. The Washington Examiner reported that “a record 61,000 unaccompanied migrant children have surged over the US-Mexico border and been handed to federal care facilities since October.” The total for fiscal year 2016 was 59,170.

Immigrants keep showing up and, inexplicably, sending their children across the border alone. Odd, given the supposedly anti-immigrant posture of the Trump administration. Perhaps, unlike Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, they know there are no concentration camps on our border.

The media don’t help. The stories indict our immigration policy when, in fact, there aren’t many good options when a child crosses the border into the United States alone.

Last week, CBS News toured the San Benito facility outside of El Paso, Texas. The resulting article blared: “Migrant facility could be holding unaccompanied children for years.”

And, in fact, CBS News learned of one child who has been held for four years. This, the network said, “violates the ‘Flores Agreement’ which mandates children be released as quickly as possible.”

But to whom? Are we really going to set tens of thousands of children free on to America’s streets and hope for the best? Are we going to hand them to a distant relative, if they are lucky enough to even have one, and not worry about the consequences? Would we do that to American children?

There isn’t a good solution, and the continual ratcheting up of the rhetoric by the left only ends up actively harming these kids. Democrats are telegraphing the message that as soon as they win the White House, people who cross the border illegally can stay.

Sen. Bernie Sanders referred to “racist child prisons,” because the Trump administration is housing children at an army base that served as a World War II internment camp for Japanese-Americans. He was silent when the Obama administration did the same thing. Will a President Sanders detain any migrants?

Sen. Liz Warren says, “We should not be criminalizing mamas and babies trying to flee violence at home or trying to build a better future.” Sounds like her administration would let everyone in, too.

But we simply can’t admit every mama and baby (and presumably a daddy or two). Such unrealistic rhetoric will only exacerbate the misery of the migrants and serve as a boon to the smugglers who profit off their misery. As CBP’s Hastings testified, “the perception that our system will allow families to stay in the United States indefinitely is clearly a major pull factor used by smugglers to convince migrants to journey to our border.”

Nor will throwing more money at the problem suffice. In June, Congress passed $4.5 billion in emergency funding for border facilities. But the kids keep coming.

Democrats must grapple with these realities. And they should echo the president’s message to families tempted to dispatch their children to the north: “Do not send your children to the borders. If they do make it, they’ll get sent back. More importantly, they might not make it.”

That president was Barack Obama, speaking in 2014.

Twitter: @Karol