Few issues facing this country are as divisive as immigration. It is also one of the least understood issues.

Emblazoned on the Statue of Liberty is Emma Lazarus’s poem “The New Colossus”: “‘Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, / I lift my lamp beside the golden door!’”

In the past, the United States has unofficially adopted the poem’s welcoming sentiment to describe its immigration policy. We are, after all, a nation of immigrants. Some of our ancestors arrived here after being forced into slavery. Some fled political persecution; others fled horrifying economic or religious oppression. Some of us descend from the pilgrims and pioneers who displaced the indigenous people already here. But no matter how a person arrived in America, we were all taught that in this country you could make something of yourself. Here we appreciate hard work and the spirit of individuality. Anyone can achieve “the American Dream.”

That dream has always been a tenuous one, and former President Donald Trump, whose thinly veiled racist policies benefited the rich, effectively killed it. He exposed us instead to his dream: Close the doors and limit immigration to the white and the wealthy.

Lost in the passions surrounding the issue of immigration is the history of how we got into this mess. The GOP is having fun bashing President Joe Biden and blaming him for a supposed new “crisis” on the border, while ignoring the facts of the situation and using fear (yet again) to whip up the base. The Democrats offer little pushback as the GOP misleadingly frames the immigration debate. Though the Republicans remain the party of no heart, the Democrats prove they remain the party of no head.

At Monday’s daily briefing, Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked about the treatment of immigrant children at the border. “We have a lot of critics,” she responded, “but many of them are not putting forward a lot of solutions.”

Psaki wants solutions? I’ll take that at face value and propose a few.

I have covered border issues since the mid-1980s, when there really was an ongoing immigration crisis. The Mexican oil industry had collapsed and then the economy crashed. Overnight, many Mexicans faced devastating losses and were left with no income and no way to pay for food and shelter. Ultimately that led to shantytowns crowded with hovels built from packing crates, pallets, cardboard and flattened tin cans. I remember visiting one such encampment outside of Monterrey, about 140 miles south of Laredo, Texas. I saw residents brush their teeth using water from a sewage lagoon. The many immigrants I’ve interviewed are neither lazy nor criminals. I can also tell you that Middle Eastern terrorists don’t hike hundreds of miles to get into the U.S., as Republican Representative Kevin McCarthy claimed this week. (They’re often well-funded and have easier means to enter the U.S.; sometimes they even fly first class.)

The current problems on the southern border are a direct result of Trump’s choices. He defied the actions of previous presidents—including Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush—who dealt with the same problem and encouraged a path to citizenship for immigrants. Today, as result of a combination of Trump’s stupid political decisions and the current economic situations in other countries, we have an influx of unaccompanied minors at the U.S.-Mexico border. Some in Central and South America have given up hope for their own futures but still cling to the hope that their children might survive and thrive in the U.S. and therefore send them north. They dream that one day they might reunite with their children somewhere safe, where they can enjoy each other’s company without the immediate threat of death, starvation, homelessness and disease.

If you want to understand what’s happening at the border with Mexico, make some more phone calls. Talk to mayors and state representatives of border areas. Psaki said Wednesday the president has been briefed on the needs at the border, but he needs to get more personally involved. Make the calls himself. Go to Rio Bravo or El Cenizo in Texas and talk with people whose families fled oppression to become Americans. I have.

Below are 10 more suggestions for how Biden can improve the border situation (he’s already embraced some of the ideas).

1. Relieve the pressure of caring for too many unaccompanied children at the border by acquiring abandoned schools, preschools and affordable housing and by hiring more staff to assist in reuniting families. FEMA’s plan to use the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas to hold up to 3,000 unaccompanied teenage migrant boys is a good first step, as is the construction of additional facilities. But convention centers aren’t the best places to harbor large numbers of children—they’re just the cheapest.

2. Immediately raise the salaries of the Border Patrol to prevent the best officers from quitting and fleeing to Customs, where they make more money. Do not invest in a senseless, passive wall that does nothing but encourage ladder sales. Invest in people. Hire more of them and train them for the wide variety of needs the Border Patrol faces every day.

3. To help reconnect families, improve relations between immigrant communities and the government. The U.S. government is seen as the enemy in many immigrant communities. More social outreach could dispel that notion. Also: Stop arresting immigrants when they come to authorities to report crimes or give testimony as witnesses.

4. Create a legitimate pathway to citizenship for everyone who wants it.

5. Hold companies accountable for using migrant labor, or simply accept it. The government should also recognize and deal with the differences in the types of migrants; seasonal workers, political refugees and economic refugees often face different problems.

6. Carefully select where U.S. money is directed in Central and South America. Crooked governments and drug cartels often work together. Going around these corrupt entities by giving directly to nonprofits and other organizations that provide care in Central and South America—as the Biden administration is already doing—is wise. But each institution that receives this aid must be more thoroughly vetted.

7. Drug cartels thrive south of the border, while many governments are weak and corrupt. Our government directly and indirectly supports both, providing aid to corrupt governments that do our government’s bidding. And Americans create markets for drug traffickers. To solve the problem of violence brought about by drug cartels, legalize every drug in the United States. Doing so would lower drug prices and remove violence from the equation. But I’ve never yet met a politician who would openly embrace and promote that concept. Until our government realistically addresses the domestic demand for drugs, this will continue to be a problem. Face it: If America was waging a war on drugs, the drugs have won. The Biden administration must find a more effective way to deal with drug addiction and find a way to reduce demand; it cannot invest in violence and narco-terrorism.

8. At the same time, the U.S. should encourage American retail investment in northern and central Mexico via tax breaks, subsidies and other incentives. Nuevo Laredo has been devastated by the cartel wars, as have many other northern Mexican towns that formerly had a higher standard of living. If we’re going to invest in our neighbors, American companies are poised to assist and stand to profit.

9. Invest in education in Central and South America. That would guarantee future security. Reinvigorate the Peace Corps and encourage American volunteerism in Central and South America.

10. Make covering the border issue easier for the press. Allow reporters inside the immigration facilities run by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services. This can only help the press and the public better understand the situation.

This last point is one of the most important. Republicans are notorious for twisting facts and promoting an agenda, which is what they’re doing now with immigration (see McCarthy’s comments for just one example). As James Carville once told me, he admires their work ethic but not their message. Democrats should take a lesson out of the Carville playbook and refuse to sit down. Promote the facts and empower the press with transparency to do the same.

Without access to the federally run facilities, the press is reduced to reporting on the rising number of juvenile immigrants without being able to fully understand the situation. Lack of press access allows the GOP freedom to scream about a “crisis” at the border. It doesn’t help put the numbers in context. It doesn’t help anyone understand the complexity of the problem.

The immigration issue won’t go away until we face facts: The United States helped create it and current policies help sustain it. Most of my sources on the border say they are happy with some of the actions Biden has taken so far, but they also believe the administration can and will do better.

The real question is how effective the government can be when it merely deals with the symptom (illegal immigration) without dealing with the causes (corrupt governments and narco-terrorism). There are no quick fixes to a problem that has been ongoing for more than 40 years and bungled by every administration.

Biden and his administration must reassess U.S. foreign policy, come to terms with this nation’s drug problems in a realistic way and accept that those who flee their homes are human beings who merely want the opportunity at the life most of us already have, along with the privileges we take for granted.