Politics

John Cornyn’s Challengers Launch Into Attack Mode Over National Guard Shooting, Afghan Visas

Sen. John Cornyn in 2012 (Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America / Wikimedia Commons)

The Nov. 26 shooting of two National Guard soldiers by an Afghan national in Washington, D.C. has become a flashpoint in the ferocious Texas Republican Senate primary with several candidates clashing over past support for refugee resettlement.

Republican Texas Rep. Wesley Hunt, who is running an insurgent campaign to unseat Sen. John Cornyn, introduced legislation Thursday to rescind all remaining special immigrant visas (SIV) for Afghan nationals who assisted the United States’ war effort in the country. Hunt and his fellow primary rival, Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, have excoriated Cornyn for supporting the resettlement of Afghans who aided the United States following the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal in August 2021.

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who served alongside U.S. forces, is accused of shooting two West Virginia National Guard members blocks from the White House on Nov. 26. National Guard specialist Sarah Beckstrom died from her injuries the next day.

Hunt, a 44 year-old combat veteran who entered Congress in 2023, argues Cornyn is in part responsible for Lakanwal’s arrival in the country in September 2021. He highlighted Cornyn’s prior work with Democratic California Sen. Alex Padilla in 2021 to spearhead legislation that expedited special immigrant visas for Afghan evacuees amid the chaotic withdrawal from the country.

“The Afghan SIV crisis we face today was started at the hands of Senator John Cornyn and radical leftist Senator Alex Padilla,” Hunt said. “They authored the very program that opened this door and allowed Rahmanullah Lakanwal to enter the United States and assassinate an American.”

However, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the alleged killer entered the United States under humanitarian parole. The agency has not mentioned whether Lakanwal had an approved SIV application.

Lakanwal was evacuated as part of a Biden-era program, known as Operation Allies Welcome, that has resettled more than 75,000 refugees in the United States following the fall of Kabul to the Taliban.

Although Lakanwal had an active SIV application underway prior to the shooting, according to multiple reports, federal authorities have not disclosed whether the alleged suspect ever obtained the visa.

Hunt has argued that given Lakanwal’s former CIA employment, it is highly likely that Lakanwal was among 3,300 Afghans who were granted a SIV in 2021.

The two-term lawmaker sent a letter to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) director Joseph Edlow on Tuesday asking the agency to divulge whether Lakanwal received a SIV when he entered the United States.

Hunt’s legislation would transfer appropriated funds for the SIV program to housing homeless veterans. The bill also directs the DHS secretary to review all previously awarded SIVs to ensure there is no present danger to Americans.

The Cornyn campaign has conversely argued that Hunt previously supported the very program his legislation is seeking to target.

“Just 18 months ago, Wesley Hunt told a news outlet that he welcomed Afghanistan refugees coming into the U.S. and that it should be everyone who was loyal to the U.S., which would likely number in the tens of thousands at minimum,” Cornyn campaign spokesman Matt Mackiowak told the DCNF.

Hunt voiced his support for Afghan visas in an interview with NOTUS in April 2024.

“However many people were loyal to us and helped us, we should be loyal back to them,” Hunt told the publication. “I don’t know what that number is, but that needs to be the number.”

Following the shooting, the Trump administration stopped processing visa applications for all Afghan nationals and halted asylum decisions.

Cornyn told the DCNF in a brief interview Wednesday that he supported Trump’s move.

“I support the president’s halt on visas because the Biden administration let tens of thousands of people into the country completely unvetted,” Cornyn told the DCNF in a brief interview on Wednesday. “I think we need to shut it down and reevaluate it.”

He and other Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans accused the Biden administration of failing to conduct proper vetting of Afghan nationals paroled into the country, in an October 2024 letter to former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

The four-term incumbent voted for several spending bills that contained funding for the evacuation program in 2021.

“It’s always America Last with John Cornyn and voters won’t be surprised to learn he’s been the leading liberal voice for opening up our borders to third world illegal aliens,” Gregg Keller, spokesman for the pro-Paxton Lonestar Liberty PAC, told the DCNF in a statement.

Andi Shae Napier contributed to this report.