There’s plenty to upset many Americans about the crisis that has erupted on our southern border with Mexico.

The most troubling to me is how some Americans are reacting to the children who are streaming across our border.

I don’t want our government to be responsible for these children until they reach adulthood. They need to be sent back as soon as it is possible to do so while ensuring their safety once they return.

Therein lies the rub with this mess.

The children who are coming to Texas and other border states are refugees fleeing lives of misery in places like Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. They aren’t drug smugglers or killers sneaking into the Land of Opportunity to do evil things to people. They’re frightened because their parents, for crying out loud, have sent them here unaccompanied. Some of the kids have been smuggled here by “coyotes,” thugs who deal in human trafficking.

Yet we’ve seen the protests along the California-Mexico border. Americans are carrying signs and shouting epithets at these children.

I’m not for an instant advocating an open-door policy that allows anyone free entry into the United States. We do have a crisis on our hands and the most helpless victims in this crisis are the children who have been detained, held in custody by various state and federal authorities.

Too many of us are condemning these kids.

If we are to direct our anger and frustration it ought to be to the authorities who run our federal and state governments for failing to protect our borders adequately. It happens to be a shared responsibility and a shared failure.

The children? They’re the pawns who deserve our care, not our scorn.