The Texas Senate race is already heating up, as Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-TX) primary opponents highlight the incumbent’s tango with amnesty — something his campaign ardently denies.
Many of the primary Senate battles across the country are a fight between MAGA policies and the GOP Old Guard, and the race in Texas is no different, with Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) and Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) positioning themselves as the true conservative alternative to Cornyn, who, they say, has a history of flirting with immigration amnesty — something not embraced by the MAGA movement.
Numbers USA gives Cornyn an F- on reducing unnecessary worker visas, providing key examples:
2018: Voted in favor of the Omnibus Spending Bill to increase H-2B visas[.] Sen. Cornyn voted in favor of the substitute amendment to H.R. 1625, the omnibus spending bill of 2018. The massive spending bill included a provision that authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to double the number of H-2B visas in FY2018.
2018: Voted in favor of Sen. Grassley’s amendment to the Senate DACA bill that would grant amnesty to illegal aliens[.] Sen. Cornyn voted for an amendment offered by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to the Senate shell bill for granting amnesty to illegal aliens. The Grassley amendment would: 1) grant amnesty to an estimated 1.8 million DACA-eligible illegal aliens, 2) end Chain Migration and the Visa Lottery, 3) repurpose the Chain and Lottery green cards for clearing out the backlog of 4 million, and 4) authorize spending for increased border security[.] The amendment failed 39-to-60 (needed 60 votes to pass).
2017: Voted in favor of increasing foreign worker visas[.] Sen. Cornyn voted in favor of H.R. 244, the 2017 omnibus spending bill. A provision of the bill allows DHS to raise the H-2B cap by 70,000 in 2017 by excluding returning H-2B workers. The spending bill, and the H-2B provision, covers half of 2017.
Overall, Cornyn took many actions in the 108th Congress, serving as the primary sponsor for S. 1387. This bill created a temporary guestworker program for illegal aliens with an amnesty-on-installment program. He also sought to reward certain college-age illegal aliens with amnesty via S. 1545, and he cosponsored S. 2258 to increase the number of H-2B visas for low-skilled foreign workers that were approved in 2004.
Further, in 2016 the senator referred to President Trump’s border wall as “naive.”
He told reporters at the time, “I would hope that we would talk with a little bit more precision about what we mean when we talk about border security. This idea that all you can do is build some obstacle and people won’t go come over it, or go under it, or go through it is naive.”
“It’s no surprise that John Cornyn voted to give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. His record proves it; he’s backed the globalist open-borders agenda that unleashed chaos across Texas and left families grieving from migrant crime,” Rep. Hunt said in a statement to Breitbart News. “He opposed Trump’s border wall, then pretended to love it. He told the media the country was ready to move on from President Trump, and now he’s spending tens of millions trying to fool Texas voters into thinking he’s always been on Trump’s side.”
“But Texans aren’t fooled,” he added. “We’re informed, awake, and ready to move on, NOT from President Trump, but from John Cornyn’s brand of politics.”
Paxton told Breitbart News, “No ‘Republican’ in America has done more to destroy our sovereignty than John Cornyn,” blasting what he says is the incumbent senator’s commitment to amnesty.
“From his commitment to giving amnesty to millions of illegals to his relentless obstruction of building the wall, Cornyn has constantly betrayed Texans and our security,” Paxton said, adding that Texans do not buy the charade.
“Now, he’s spending millions of dollars claiming he has supported the border wall, but Texans don’t believe his deception and they won’t forget the years he spent calling President Trump’s wall ‘naive.’ Cornyn even said President Trump didn’t understand the border issue, which tells you exactly how out-of-touch and liberal Cornyn really is,” Paxton added.
Cornyn’s team denies these claims.
“Senator Cornyn has never supported amnesty. Period,” Cornyn campaign senior adviser Matt Mackowiak said in a statement to Breitbart News. “In the Senate he has voted 99.3 percent with President Trump over five years in office, including supporting President Trump on every immigration bill.”
“Sen. Cornyn was proud to secure $13B+ in federal reimbursement for states that have secured the border where the feds failed,” Mackowiak added.
This is not the only high-stakes Senate race where conservatives are trying to differentiate themselves from RINOs vying for a Senate seat. Over the weekend, Nate Morris, Republican candidate in Kentucky’s Senate race, discussed remarks his opponent Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) made in which he bragged about voting for amnesty for illegal aliens — a common theme among RINO Republicans.
“What we saw today, in this clip, in this week, is an absolute and utter disgrace,” Morris said. “Andy Barr revealed who he was. He is that old-line country club RINO Republican that wants to sell out America for his big business cronies so they can get cheap labor. And he’s caught on tape.”
“This flies in the face of everything that President Trump stands for. We know this flies in the face of what the MAGA movement is all about, which is about a strong border, zero tolerance, no carve-outs, no exceptions. Every illegal has got to go back,” he continued. “We’ve called for a full moratorium on any new immigration coming into our country until every one of the 20 million illegals that have invaded America under Joe Biden go back… where they came from.”
“He’s saying that we’ve got to provide a pathway for these millions of illegals to stay in this country,” Morris added.
editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that Cornyn did not support the infamous Gang of Eight amnesty bill. Cornyn at the time offered an amendment that, as Politico described, “would have added a hard trigger on border security as a requirement to undocumented immigrants’ pathway to citizenship.”
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.