“Is there any number of illegal border crossings into the United States that would strike Democrats as an emergency?” asks Byron York. His point is to show that, regardless of the ebb and flow of border apprehensions over the last 20 years, the system is overwhelmed and there is indeed a border crisis.

Enter the first Democrat 2020 presidential candidate to actually put forward an immigration plan. Julian Castro, who just happens to be Hispanic, “unveiled a far-reaching immigration plan on Tuesday that would make it easier for illegal immigrants to enter and remain in the United States,” reports The Washington Free Beacon.

Let that sink in. Amidst a worsening border crisis, Castro wants to open the borders further.

Castro claims he’s “Putting People First,” which is ironic on many levels, not least of which is the stark contrast to President Donald Trump’s “America First” push. Castro certainly isn’t putting American workers first, let alone immigrants who made the effort to come here legally.

Among numerous changes to existing law, according to the Free Beacon, “Broadly speaking, Castro’s plan would extend legal rights, and eventually citizenship, to all people illegally residing in the United States; make it substantially easier to legally and illegally immigrate; and conversely make enforcement of immigration law substantially harder by removing law enforcement from the equation almost entirely.”

Why? Because, Castro argues, “Migration shouldn’t be a criminal justice issue. It’s time to end this draconian policy and return to treating immigration as a civil — not a criminal — issue.”

This isn’t surprising, of course. Democrats over the last decade have gone from insisting on and voting to fund a border wall to advocating open borders and flat-out rejecting the idea that there’s a problem. “I’m from the border; there’s no crisis there,” Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) said recently. “There is no crisis on the border,” echoed Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY). And the Democrats’ foremost Leftmedia propaganda outlet, The Washington Post, echoed that via opinion writer E.J. Dionne: “There is no crisis at our nation’s border.”

Nothing to see here; move along.

But there is something to see. Here are just two headlines in the last 24 hours:

“DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen: Traffickers Using ‘Child Recycling’ Rings To Bring Migrants Into U.S.” (The Daily Wire)

“5 Federal Courts on Mexican Border Lead Nation in Criminal Convictions.” (CNS News)

A final note: It’s not clear that Castro’s approach actually will appeal widely to Hispanics. As our Thomas Gallatin noted Monday in covering Trump’s threats to close the border, “Recent polling finds that Trump now has a 50% approval rating among Hispanics, indicating favorable support for his border-enforcement policy among a demographic of Americans the mainstream media claims would be opposed.”