Texas US Sen. John Cornyn calls for 'safe, orderly, humane and legal' immigration reform

A day after President Joe Biden visited El Paso, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn led a bipartisan group of senators to El Paso to call for immigration reform.

The Republican senator from Texas echoed language often used by Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in their calls on Congress to overhaul the nation's outdated immigration laws.

"We need an immigration system that is safe, orderly, humane and legal," Cornyn said.

"Right now, this mass of humanity coming across the border is not entering the country through an orderly or legal process," he said. "We are trying to cope with it. That's why you keep hearing from President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas, and others, that they need Congress to step up and provide some answers."

Responding to shifting migration patterns

The delegation included U.S. Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Arizona; James Lankford, R-Oklahoma; Mark Kelly, D-Arizona; Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina; Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut; Jerry Moran, R-Kansas; and Chris Coons, D-Delaware.

The senators visited Bassett Middle School, which the city converted into a temporary migrant shelter in December amid a surge of asylum-seekers at the El Paso border. They heard from Mayor Oscar Leeser, County Judge Ricardo Samaniego and other stakeholders, including immigrant advocates, law enforcement and members of the business community during a roundtable discussion.

The school-turned-shelter was empty on Monday, a sign of how quickly migration patterns can shift.

The Border Patrol El Paso Sector has been encountering an average of about 700 asylum-seekers and other migrants on average in January, compared to a daily average peak of over 2,500 late last year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The delegation also toured the El Paso border Monday night with the Border Patrol, as agents apprehended migrants attempting to enter the country unlawfully. Agents explained the dangerous tactics being used by smugglers that result in migrants being injured or killed.

The US built a taller border wall. Migrants are falling, and their injuries are life-altering

Cornyn said the bipartisan delegation of senators from around the country are "interested in coming up with answers to the questions being asked when comes to dealing with the current crisis at the border."

'We have come so close'

Congress has repeatedly tried and failed to reform the nation's immigration laws over the past 25 years.

The last major overhaul of the system was in 1986, when President Ronald Reagan signed into law the bipartisan Immigration Reform and Control Act. A smaller reform passed in 1996.

A decade ago in 2013, a group of senators — four Republicans and four Democrats known as the "Gang of Eight" — came up with a reform package that passed the Senate with strong bipartisan report. The House of Representatives let the bill die on the floor.

"We have come so close since then a number of times, but it just hasn’t happened," said Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants' Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School.

That Democratic senators joined Cornyn at the border in El Paso is a possible sign of legislative movement to come, Mukherjee said.

As a senator from the border state hit hardest by migration-related humanitarian crises in recent years, Cornyn "has the potential to be a critical leader on immigration reform," she said.

But she cautioned against blind optimism.

"Immigration is such a politically fraught issue," she said. "Republicans, especially, benefit from taking a hard line on potential compromises and have the potential to scuttle deals."

Cornyn chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration. In 2021, he supported a Texas coalition of business leaders' efforts to push for a congressional fix for "Dreamers," people brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

"We have a 1,200-mile border with Mexico," Cornyn said. "We are ground zero when it comes to the border crisis that we are experiencing. We heard from a variety of stakeholders, people who live and work here along the border who are having to deal with this mass of humanity coming across the border."

Border security demands

Ruben Garcia, executive director of the Annunciation House network of migrant shelters, criticized the delegation for congressional inaction on immigration.

Lawmakers have often held reform hostage on demands for more border security, he said during the roundtable discussion, even as the federal government expanded the Border Patrol.

The number of agents swelled from fewer than 5,000 in the mid-1990s to roughly 20,000 today, according to CBP.

"How many administrations do we go back? And the same mantra: ‘Secure the border. Secure the border. Give me more money to secure the border,’" Garcia said during the roundtable. "The truth is that it is a political ploy (politicians) use to get votes."

Sinema, the Arizona independent, said in a post on Twitter that the delegation's visit to El Paso "provided a sobering account of the very real challenges that the men and women tasked with securing the border, border towns and migrants themselves experience each and every day."

The goal was to bring "colleagues of diverse political beliefs together to finally make progress" on immigration issues.

On Tuesday, the senators traveled to Arizona, where Sinema was expected to lead a border tour in her state.

President Biden to El Paso: 'What can I do to help?'

This story is being updated.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Texas Sen. John Cornyn calls for 'humane and legal' immigration reform