Why do so many people crash through the U.S. border? First, it's because they are confident that they can, especially if accompanied by children, since it long has been known that the border authorities don't have the facilities to handle the kids humanely. So they will just wave crashers through, the practice of "catch and release," whereupon they all can disappear into "sanctuary cities" and fail to honor summonses to appear in immigration court.

Second, people crash through the border because they are confident that they can find employment in the United States, employment that, while illegal, is better than what they can find at home.

As a result, an estimated 3 percent to 4 percent of the U.S. population, as many as 12 million people, lives here illegally. Few are criminals but some are, and the presence of all of them rebukes the assumption that the law controls immigration and indeed should control it. This lack of law enforcement threatens the country with the demographic, social, and political changes convulsing Europe.

Many members of Connecticut's congressional delegation, all Democrats, went to Texas the other day to visit the immigrant detention centers and deplore President Trump's separation of illegal immigrants from their children. But deploring isn't a solution. Neither is merely reuniting parents and kids in the detention centers, or waving them all through in a return to "catch and release."

So what do Connecticut's members propose for the near term?

From interviews and recent statements they seem to favor mainly faster adjudication of immigrant claims to entry.

Rep. Jim Himes points to an experimental program, terminated by the Trump administration, which gave temporary admission to families and provided them with scrutiny and services while they decided their claims. Most of the immigrants whose claims were rejected are said to have returned to their home countries as ordered.

But such a program's return rate will always be a function of its admission rate. The more immigrants admitted, the fewer deported, and, as now, illegal entrants still would be waved through.

Sen. Chris Murphy calls attention to proposals that the U.S. Embassy and consulates in Mexico be designated as the points of application for immigration and asylum in the United States, thereby drawing activity away from the border. That would help with those seeking to enter legally but it would not deter illegal entrants.

Rep. Joe Courtney notes an essay by former Vice President Joe Biden in the Washington Post headlined, "The Border Won't Be Secure Until Central America Is," what with three poor and violent countries there being the source of much illegal immigration. Biden urged greater U.S. aid to those countries. But merely reducing the flow of illegals will not secure the border, and as our futile war in Afghanistan enters its 18th year with the approval of most congressional Democrats, more U.S. aid has little credibility, especially while the party advocates "sanctuary cities" and open borders.

Most of the delegation advocates a big increase in judges and staff for the overwhelmed immigration courts, hastening adjudication of immigration cases. But this also presumes more "catch and release" while cases are decided.

So, increasingly, the only effective methods of controlling immigration seem to be to build Trump's wall, to require employers to use the "E-Verify" system of determining each employee's eligibility to work, and to prosecute vigorously employers who fail.

Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer in Manchester.