The federal government is warehousing thousands of migrant children in teeming, cold facilities, where workers are prohibited from hugging not only teenagers, for whom these shelters were originally designed, but also the infants who arrived more recently at their doorstep. The kids at these shelters line up for everything. They mop bathrooms and make their beds according to strict rules. They are not allowed to run.

The way these children have been treated exemplifies a fundamental truth with broader implications worth confronting before the spotlight fully fades: the government is a lousy parent.