Psaki and her fellow panelists, like Joy-Ann Reid, chose to spend a Super Tuesday segment laughing at the fact that voters care about the crisis at the border, with Rachel Maddow making a crack at West Virginians.

On one hand, they had a lot of time to fill, and it is odd that some political issues loom large in people’s imaginations even if the effect on daily life is minimal. Immigration, for people who live far from the border and not in receiving hubs for new arrivals, arguably qualifies. When people worry about illegal immigration, they frequently cite economic worries—job stealing and strain on social services—and crime fears.

Voters are wrong to overcorrelate the decline of American cities and the influx of illegal immigrants at the southern border, but they’re not wrong to be concerned that an uncontrolled inflow could impose costs. We have record numbers of border crossings, from a greater variety of sending countries than before (not just Mexico and the Northern Triangle). Our asylum processing times keep getting longer. Blue cities like mine, which have a legal obligation to guarantee shelter for those who seek it, are running into fiscal issues since the demand for social services simply outstrips the supply.

The bill always comes due in the end, both literally for expanded welfare services and figuratively when a problem is insufficiently addressed and the rule of law gets further eroded. Elite dismissiveness does the Democratic Party no favors, and you probably should spend Super Tuesday analyzing electoral outcomes instead of laughing at voters’ priorities.