On Mother’s Day weekend 2014, Obama’s new secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, was returning from California, where he and his wife were visiting their son, when a top official at Customs and Border Protection told him that the situation in South Texas was “out of control.” Thousands of unaccompanied children from Central America were showing up at Border Patrol stations, confounding agents and overwhelming the department’s resources. There was also a significant spike in the number of parents and children who were arriving together and seeking asylum.
