J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press
Senator John Cornyn spoke with reporters about an immigration bill in Washington on Tuesday.
WASHINGTON — One week into the Senate’s immigration floor fight, Senator John Cornyn of Texas has emerged as the most polarizing figure on the issue: a Republican leader from a border state brandishing a border security plan that he says is meant to salvage the measure but is seen by others as a surreptitious attempt to scuttle it.
To his supporters, Mr. Cornyn is simply trying to rescue a potentially historic immigration overhaul by offering a reasonable plan that would attract reluctant Republicans by strengthening border security before 11 million people who are in the country illegally can begin their path to citizenship. But to Democrats and immigration advocates, Mr. Cornyn, the No. 2 Senate Republican, has written a “poison pill” provision intended to torpedo a bill he would never support.
One thing is certain: the role of Mr. Cornyn, who has snowy white hair and a visage that looks more British tea-sipper than Texas two-stepper, is sure to have ramifications for him in the Republican leadership, in the Senate itself and in Texas, where the fast-growing Hispanic population is changing the demographic face of the state.
“No one believes the status quo is acceptable, and I think just saying no is not a satisfactory answer,” Mr. Cornyn, shod in brown alligator-skin cowboy boots, said in an interview in the whip’s office just off the Senate floor. “So if you’re not going to say no, I think you have to come up with a solution, and I think this is part of it.”
Mr. Cornyn’s proposed amendment would require both the Department of Homeland Security and the top federal auditor to certify that all of his border goals had been met before immigrants could start the path to citizenship and receive a green card. His method of measuring success would include a 90 percent apprehension rate of illegal crossers at the southern border, as well as the installation of a biometric exit system at all air and sea ports, which immigration advocates worry could be logistically unattainable.
Though Democrats have expressed a willingness to strengthen border enforcement measures, they say that Mr. Cornyn’s provision goes too far. Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York and a member of the bipartisan group that drafted the legislation, called it a “nonstarter,” and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, was among those who labeled it a poison pill. (Mr. Cornyn took to the floor to assert that the real poison pill would be not accepting his amendment.)
“He’s pulled out a machete, and he’s hacking at the path to citizenship,” said Frank Sharry, the executive director of America’s Voice, a pro-immigration group. “He doesn’t want to improve border security, he wants to take down the path to citizenship. If he wanted more border security without impaling the path to citizenship, he’d probably get it.”
“This is a guy,” Mr. Sharry added, “who pretends he wants to get to yes, always gets to no, and in the meantime destabilizes the bipartisan immigration bill in place.”
Mr. Cornyn says that his critics are simply wrong and that his plan is a way to respond to a “real trust deficit” between the federal government and Republicans by making sure that the government remains accountable for its border security promises.
“If my amendment is adopted,” he said, “we will have something concrete and credible we can show people that improves the broken system, and that’s something I can comfortably defend.”
Mr. Cornyn’s fellow Republicans largely agree. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a Republican author of the bill and one of his party’s most prominent Hispanics, has been publicly supportive of Mr. Cornyn’s amendment, and Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, called it “reasonable, moderate, middle-of-the-road.”
“For the life of me, I don’t see why they don’t just take the Cornyn amendment,” Mr. Hatch said, referring to Senate Democrats. “He said he’ll vote for the bill. That’s a big vote, that’s a border-state-senator vote. That’s a courageous thing to do.”
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