“Of the 40 young people I interviewed, nine — seven boys and two girls — told me they were captured by the Zetas cartel in Mexico on their way to the United States. Rape is so common that many migrant girls get birth-control injections before they leave home.” Politico’s Susan Terrio interviews the children of America’s border disaster.

+ Drop the disease rhetoric. The Central American kids arriving in Texas are likely to be better-vaccinated than children in Texas.

+ Slate’s Josh Keating: “The Americas overtook Africa as the region with the world’s most murders this year, and Honduras now vastly leads the world.” The U.S. can’t just fence itself off from the crisis.