Is Texas Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn suddenly panicking about his reelection campaign? It sure seems like it. Last month, he released an absolutely ridiculous Spanish-language ad featuring a jaw-dropping lie that he’s actually supported legalization for undocumented immigrant youth, when in reality he’s given the thumbs down to it a number of times on the Senate floor. Now just mere weeks away from Election Day, he’s trying to con us into yet another doozy.
“Cornyn said about a year ago he called Trump and told the president he no longer believed that protections for some immigrants brought to the country illegally as children should be ‘used as leverage to try to get other things we want on immigration,’” Houston Chronicle reports. (Oh, so he did support using them as political pawns at one time is what he’s also saying.) But now that he’s being given a run for his money by Democratic nominee MJ Hegar, he wants us to believe he’s really been fighting behind the scenes but just hadn’t said anything? Sure, John.
It’s a fact that Cornyn had previously publicly dismissed a standalone immigration bill that would put undocumented youth on a path to citizenship: “Some would like to see a narrow bill focused on the youths and border security,” the Houston Chronicle noted in 2018, “but Cornyn said any citizenship concessions would require cuts to family migration and the diversity visa lottery.”
In other words, punishing one group of immigrants to “help” another. That’s also assuming Cornyn didn’t just pull the football in the end and vote against the DREAM Act or other pro-immigrant legislation, like he’s done over and over again. (Read more on the Cornyn Con here.) Now fewer than 30 days before the election, Cornyn’s telling us about his supposed change of heart when it comes to undocumented youth. And John has stories about pleading not just with Trump, but others in the White House.
“Cornyn said he ‘no longer felt comfortable’ tying an extension to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to the other policies,” Houston Chronicle reports. “I no longer believed it was moral, really, to use these young people who did nothing wrong,” Cornyn said, using language that could be taken as casting blame on their parents instead. That’ll keep winning folks over, John. Cornyn also claimed he tried to pressure adviser Jared Kushner, but “unfortunately … my view did not prevail,” he continued to Houston Chronicle. Perhaps boy wonder was too busy ushering in world peace to get to immigration.
But maybe you’re saying: Now just hold on a second, Gabe. Are you so cynical from years of John Cornyn pulling a Lucy on you that you’re refusing to believe that people can change? You know what, you have a really good point there. People do change. People can learn. People can evolve. So here’s Cornyn’s opportunity to show us he really means what he says by publicly supporting the American Dream and Promise Act.
That legislation, which would put DACA recipients on a path to citizenship, was passed by the House over a year ago but has since been buried in Mitch McConnell’s legislative graveyard. Cornyn claims he’s no longer in favor of attaching strings, so here’s his chance to show us he means it. Support the legislation, John. And do more than just issue a tweet or statement. We want to see you pressure McConnell. Publicly push him, prove us wrong, and go to the mat for the over 100,000 DACA recipients in your state. Show us you mean it.
Or, maybe this whole thing is just the latest chapter of the Cornyn Con. Maybe not. Or maybe. That’s the problem when you play with so many people’s lives for so long: Eventually, they just lose all faith in you.
“A standalone bill to legalize Dreamers passed the House of Representatives in 2019, yet John Cornyn refuses to tell Sen. Mitch McConnell to bring it up for a vote,” Mario Carrillo, Texas-based campaigns manager for America’s Voice, said in a statement. “John Cornyn could do this. Today. But he won’t. Because he’s lying. Texans deserve leaders. John Cornyn is not one.”
