For the most part, though, Democratic candidates appear unwilling to make the hard choices that a difficult situation like the one along the border demands. For example, facilities on the American side are inadequate to house all the people seeking asylum; it makes sense, then, to house them on the Mexican side, so long as the United States, along with human rights groups, ensures that the applicants have safe, decent housing conditions and due process in immigration court. But most of the candidates reject that option out of hand — even though we know that a vast majority of asylum claims will be rejected.

Their unrealistic position seems to imply that most people who arrive at the border asking for asylum have a valid claim. But as much as we can sympathize with their plight, the poverty and generalized fear of violence that most at the border hope to escape do not qualify them for asylum under American or international law. “Membership in a particular social group” (the legal category they invoke) is sometimes interpreted to cover fear of targeted gang violence and domestic violence. But courts traditionally have rejected this reading, because such fears are so common and are not tied to a qualifying “particular social group.” Democrats should propose more rigorous criteria for adjudicating such claims, rather than just pretend that the law means something it mostly doesn’t.

Democrats should also endorse much stronger interior enforcement, although it is more socially disruptive than border control: Roughly half of the 10.5 million undocumented immigrants in America entered illegally, and the other half overstayed their visas and melted into the population. President Barack Obama took interior enforcement seriously, and Democrats today should not apologize for his actions, deriding him as “deporter in chief” — as they too often do on the stump and the debate stage.

Effective interior enforcement means mandating that all employers use an improved, pre-hiring E-verify status check, and occasionally using well-targeted work site audits and arrests to enforce employer sanctions, which have been on the books since 1986. No administration, Republican or Democratic, has made that a priority. But it could be a winning issue for a smart Democratic candidate appealing to American working-class and union voters.

A harder enforcement choice is whether to apprehend otherwise law-abiding undocumented people in places other than at work. Such a tactic may be unwise or unjust in many cases, and it must be done in a way that does not interfere with community policing. But leading Democratic candidates reject even warranted deportation once undocumented migrants manage to cross the border. Predictably, this stance invites charges that they favor “open borders.” American voters keen to protect our national sovereignty will punish candidates who risk undermining it.