Sen. John Cornyn Hints at Amnesty, Pro-Migration Deal with Democrats

Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn suggested Tuesday evening he would push through an immigration bill with amnesty advocate Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA).

The suggestion came as Cornyn congratulated Republicans and Democrats as they voted for a bill to curb gun violence. A reporter for the Huffington Post tweeted:

More positive ~~ vibes ~~ on Senate floor. A smiling Cornyn tells Padilla, “First guns, now it’s immigration” “That’s right, we’re going to do it,” [Sen. Kyrsten] Sinema [D-Az] added

Cornyn has drafted a border security bill with Sinema, while Padilla is pushing for a formal amnesty for the more than a million illegal migrants who were brought by their illegal-migrant parents to the United States.

The Cornyn-Sinema bill would streamline the inflow with new processing centers and aid workers, plus easy migrant access to lawyers. The draft bill does not include any significant measure to reduce the flood of wage-cutting, and rent-boosting migrants into Americans’ communities.

In a June 14 hearing, Cornyn noted that his bill does little to curb the policy of catch and release at the border:

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Cornyn spoke to Padilla at the June 14 hearing and outlined his migration priorities. “I’ve long been a supporter of employment-based immigration,” he said:

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{snip} Per-country caps have artificially limited access to employment-based visas for prospective immigrants from countries like India, preventing workers who want to contribute to our economy for being able to do. {snip}

Today’s hearing is focused on one potential source of highly trained workers who could contribute to our economy: Individuals who come to study at our universities and other educational institutions on F, J and a M visa … Every year, more than 200,000 new highly skilled students temporarily join our workforce through the Optional Practical Training program, outstripping the number of permanent [U.S.] positions available to them when they finish this program. {snip}

And as we consider more pathways for high-skilled immigrants to come to the United States, we should not forget our need for guest workers who may not hold university degrees, but are important to our economy.

Those policies are favored by donors and CEOs in Texas — including the CEOs of the many companies that employed Indian and Chinese visa workers instead of Texas graduates.

But Cornyn ended his speech by suggesting a reason that might prevent him from backing migration bills: “Continuing to ignore the crisis on the southern border — as the Biden administration has chosen to do — is only making it harder for us to build the support we need to grow our employment-based immigration system and our economy.”

The public is divided by immigration issues, partly because of widespread sympathy for illegal migrants.

However, both the GOP voters — and the suburban swing voters who are needed in November — oppose legislation that would allow foreign workers to compete for jobs against unemployed Americans, or to force down Americans’ salaries and wages. That concern over uncontrolled migration is also pushing Democratic-leaning Latinos in Cornyn’s Texas to switch their votes to the GOP.

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Cornyn’s potential partner, Democratic Sen. Padilla, is pushing a variety of business-backed bills that would accelerate the inflow of economic migrants into California and many other American communities. He is also pushing amnesty to naturalize many migrants so they can vote in Americans’ elections.

Another draft Padilla bill would allow convicted migrant criminals to get green cards.

Padilla has also drafted a bill with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) that would incentivize foreign workers to take long-term, lower-wage, white-collar jobs for CEOs in exchange for getting paid with green cards for themselves and their children. That bill would help Fortune 500 companies to replace American graduates with cheaper foreign visa workers.

Padilla has also drafted a bill that would provide the huge prize of green cards and citizenship to at least 5 million migrants who have taken low-wage jobs, including food-service workers, healthcare support workers, and farm workers.

Padilla is also pushing the American Dream and Promise Act, which would provide citizenship to at least 3 million illegals, temporary migrants, and children of visa workers.

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