Instead, the Trump administration’s own draconian policies are to blame. Around the same time that it began separating immigrant children from their parents as they crossed into the United States, the Department of Homeland Security also established strict requirements for the relatives and friends who might care for these children while their cases are sorted out. Prospective sponsors are now required to submit fingerprints, and to share their information with federal immigration officers. Because most of them are undocumented immigrants themselves, they have been scared off by these requirements. And with good cause: Dozens of applicants who took the chance of applying to be sponsors have been arrested on immigration charges. As would-be sponsors shrink away, more children are stranded in federal custody.

Images of young children who were taken from their parents this summer prompted a widespread public outcry, leading the Trump White House and immigration officials to reverse course. The long-lasting trauma of extended detention, however, is harder to capture on film. Proponents of the current system insist that the restrictions on sponsors were put into place for the children’s protection. But it’s hard to see how any of the new policies could possibly do more good than harm.

Staff members at shelters cried as the children were removed, they told The Times, out of dread for what the children would now face. The tent city in Texas is not being held to any of the rules that group homes or foster care facilities are subject to. And those existing safeguards had already proved inadequate protection against physical abuse, sexual assault and emotional torment. The Department of Health and Human Services has instead offered a thin set of guidelines, but while the tents are air-conditioned, children will not have regular access to schooling or legal services.